Memoriam
by Lawson227
Summary: COMPLETE Once upon a time, choices were made, relationships revealed, and decisions rendered. What happened after and how it affected the two primary participants in most unexpected ways. Will likely eventually be Karen/Carlton. Obviously, an unconventional pairing we're never going to see on screen; however, that's why it's fiction. Rock on.
1. YEAR ONE

**YEAR ONE  
****_2008_**

**Disclaimer:** Yeah, yeah… own nothing of _**psych**_. Only playing in the sandbox. Obviously, making some suppositions. And well, yanno, it's _fiction, _so let's just roll with it, 'kay?

**AN: **Obviously, this is an unconventional pairing we're _never_ going to see on screen; however, this is a site designed to allow writers a means by which to express various story ideas, most of which we're never likely to see onscreen. Ergo, this is merely an exercise in "What if?" as all fiction is at its core—an exploration of a path not taken. If you'd care to explore the path, welcome. If it's not one you wish to read, feel free to move along, no hard feelings.

* * *

Karen had spent the entirety of the morning buried in meetings, in paperwork, more meetings, a conference call, and still _more_ paperwork, subsisting on little more than coffee spiked with increasing amounts of sugar, until she was pouring in nearly as much as Carlton did on a regular basis.

It was the thought of her head detective, as she tore open yet another packet of sugar, that led to the startling realization she hadn't seen him all morning. Startling because she couldn't recall the last time she hadn't seen Carlton during a workday. Also startling because until this moment she hadn't realized how… _aware_ she was of the man's presence. For such a quiet man, he had a way of dominating space he considered his and if there was any one place he considered to be his domain, it was the detectives' bullpen.

"O'Hara—"

The younger woman looked up from the file she'd been studying. "Chief?"

"Where's Detective Lassiter? I don't recall seeing he had any scheduled court appearances."

"He doesn't." O'Hara lifted a shoulder. "He took a half day—said he'd be in after lunch." Both tone and demeanor radiated a casual lack of concern. Clearly, she'd sensed nothing amiss with her partner.

Then again, she wouldn't. She'd known Carlton barely eighteen months, which by normal people standards was the equivalent of knowing the very private man maybe eighteen days. And _that_ was taking into account the fact they were partners and spent inordinate amounts of time—again, by normal people standards—together. Karen, having known him considerably longer, knew that Carlton simply did _not_ take half days. Not for illness or appointments and most assuredly not for anything frivolous. To the best of her recollection, the last time he _had_ taken a half day had been the day his wife had filed the formal papers for their separation.

Karen hadn't known that was his reason at the time. Hell, she hadn't even been aware of his even taking the time in the first place. Why would she? For one, she'd still been working within the Special Investigations Unit and as such, had neither reason nor desire for any sort of day-to-day interaction with the notoriously cranky Head Detective. For another, no one knew of his separation—not until much, much later and even after it had come to light, he'd alluded to it as a recent event. It hadn't been until after she'd risen to the position of Chief and Shawn Spencer had come by the information during a later case that she'd learned not only of the true length of his separation, but also the efforts he'd gone to in order to try to salvage his marriage. Shortly thereafter she'd been filing performance reviews and making note of work-related absences—or in Carlton's case, a marked lack thereof—and had put two and two together.

Nearly three years later and here he was, taking another half day.

She'd be lying if she didn't admit to wondering why.

It was with that vague, disquieting sense of _why_ hovering that Karen returned to her office and yet another scheduled conference call. She loved her job. She really did. But calls regarding the proper requisitioning of supplies for the various city and county facilities was not the sort of cutting edge work she'd envisioned herself doing when she'd accepted the job of Chief of Police. She allowed herself a half-smile as she tried to envision Detective Lassiter in this position that he wanted so badly. If _she_ was experiencing impatience, she could only imagine how he'd be coping with a phone call of this nature.

He wouldn't is how. He would have long since put the damned phone on mute and gone back to the business of real police work.

It was during a heated discussion between the City Comptroller and the new Coroner, one Woodrow Strode, who was currently arguing that he absolutely _needed_ a wood-fired, brick pizza oven in the morgue for reasons known only to himself, that Karen noted a familiar, dark-suited figure making his way into the bullpen. Head high, gaze focused, he strode confidently toward his desk, nodding acknowledgment at the occasional address or greeting, but there weren't many of those. Detective Lassiter wasn't the sort of man who invited much in the way of casual conversation although he'd unbent a bit in spite of himself, since being partnered with the brighter, cheerier Detective O'Hara.

Frankly, Karen was shocked the partnership had weathered the past eighteen months, what with O'Hara's relentlessly positive attitude, not to mention the introduction of Shawn Spencer into their operations. Especially since Mr. Spencer seemed inexorably drawn toward Detective O'Hara and found countless ways to insert himself into any investigation to which O'Hara and Lassiter were assigned.

Karen sighed. She really should make more of an effort to assign Spencer to the other detective teams, but she couldn't deny, the unlikely combination of O'Hara, Lassiter, Spencer, and to a lesser degree, Mr. Guster, yielded results. And it wasn't simply because of Spencer's preternatural gifts either. Much of their success could be just as readily credited to Lassiter's increasing annoyance with what he saw as Spencer's interference—an annoyance that spurred him to increase his efforts and apply his own prodigious gifts even more diligently.

Whatever she thought of Mr. Spencer—and if she was honest, there were days it wasn't much—the four of them got results. The Mayor—he liked results.

As the tedious conversation wore on—from what she could gather, Strode was now requesting an inversion table, for increased blood flow purposes, you understand—she found her gaze returning to Detective Lassiter. She couldn't shake the feeling of something being… off. Not quite right, despite nothing outwardly out of the ordinary with respect to his usual stern demeanor.

Except…

She watched as he removed his black suit jacket and hung it up; unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up the sleeves of his ivory dress shirt before unfastening his collar and loosening his tie.

His _black_ tie.

Carlton was a stoic individual, yes, and he did have a marked preference for dark, well-cut suits, but for the most part, he had a tendency to offset the suits with either shirts in varying shades of blue or more recently, increasingly vibrant ties.

Karen couldn't recall a time she'd ever seen Carlton in a black suit _and_ black tie. Almost as if he'd just been at a—

"Oh, hell," she muttered.

"Chief Vick?" came a disembodied voice from the speaker. "You have something to add to the discussion?"

"Uh… no." Considering she had no earthly clue what direction the discussion had meandered. Her focus returned to Lassiter, sorting through items on his desk, signing a form that Sergeant Allen brought him, even exchanging conversation with O'Hara, a rare ghost of a smile crossing his face. But it was a smile that didn't reach his eyes—one that, the moment O'Hara turned away, faded, leaving him not simply stern, but unusually somber. Turning his chair, he leaned back, his deliberate motion to close himself off from the rest of the bullpen bringing him more fully into her line of sight. Even through the slatted blinds, Karen could see a rare blankness rendering the normally sharp, vibrant blue of his gaze dull and gray.

She pulled her computer keyboard closer and very quietly, so as not to attract the attention of the rest of the conference call participants, began a search of obituaries, looking for his mother's name. While Karen was well aware the woman drove him utterly nuts and had never quite forgiven him for not telling her he was separated from his wife—or more accurately, for not retrieving the wedding rings from the gold-digging little witch, a direct quote according to O'Hara who'd had the misfortune of being the one to break the news to the old battle-axe—she was still Lassiter's mother.

Why he didn't think he could take an entire day—hell, a _week... _Good Lord, but the man was impossible.

So intent was she on looking for Mrs. Lassiter's name, that she very nearly missed it. It was only some subconscious part of her brain that tripped over the once-familiar name—that prompted her to scroll back up the page and read the entry, making note that yes, today, had been the memorial service.

Stomach churning, she typed that same name into a new search window, pulling up the articles reporting the circumstances of the death in question, providing every gruesome detail.

How could she have missed this?

_Easily_, her conscience poked. It had been eighteen months since Karen had last seen her—even spared her a second thought if she was completely honest. Not since she'd signed the paperwork transferring the junior detective and ending her short-lived tour of duty with the Santa Barbara Police Department. She'd had no choice. What had happened… it was highly unprofessional and as early in her own tenure as it had been, she'd had to deal with it with a firm hand, effectively establishing her unquestionable authority.

Ironically, it had been Carlton himself who had found the open detective's slot up in San Luis Obispo. At the time Karen had cynically thought it was so they could maintain their relationship. It was close enough it certainly wouldn't have been beyond the realm of possibility, even working around two busy schedules and the unpredictability of police work. In the weeks that followed, however, she realized they hadn't. That Carlton wouldn't. He'd been humiliated beyond all measure—another reason Karen was shocked his partnership with O'Hara with its baggage of Shawn Spencer, the engineer of his downfall, had lasted.

And now…

And now…

"Oh, God."

"Chief Vick?"

"Dammit, not _now_." With an impatient jab, she ended the phone call. For all she cared, Strode could build a gourmet pizza and Reiki massage parlor in the morgue.

She pressed fingertips to painfully throbbing temples. "Oh, _Carlton_. Why didn't you say anything?"

Then again, why would he? Especially to _her_, of all people.

And what could she say to him? What could she possibly say that would ease what she could so clearly see now was a very real, deep pain?

What on earth could she ever say that could absolve her in any way of the blame he no doubt laid squarely on her shoulders?

Lucinda Barry had been killed in the line of duty and because of Karen, Carlton hadn't been there to protect her.


	2. YEAR TWO

**YEAR TWO  
**_**2009**_

* * *

Karen cradled the gold shield in her hand, feeling again the barely restrained anger and frustration as he'd all but slapped it into her palm. Feeling, still, the warmth imbuing the metal and its leather holster from its constant contact with his body, though it had long since faded.

She turned it over and over in her palm, meditatively running her thumb over the raised city emblems—tracing the engraved **856-SBPD**, the edges of the numbers and letters worn smooth from many years' worth of use.

Yet still gleaming and bright with pride and respect for what the badge meant.

And she'd taken it from him.

She'd _had_ to.

Had been left with no choice despite the knowledge, deep in her gut, that it was wrong. That there was no way he could be guilty of this… _thing_ the mounting evidence and the blowhards occupying. Internal Affairs were so anxious to lay on him. Yes, Carlton was difficult. Yes, she, and Chief Fenich before her, had too-often had to force him to justify what appeared to be excessive use of his weapon. They'd too-often had to smooth ruffled feathers with other lawmakers or the press at his impatience with what he saw as their deliberate obtuseness.

Yes, Carlton desperately wanted to see the bad guys brought to heel, but _never_ at the expense of justice. And while the wheels of justice might sometimes turn too slowly for his taste, especially when the solution was obvious and _right there, dammit_, he had never _ever_ been one to take shortcuts or enact his own form of justice. He had sworn a solemn oath to put his faith in the system—had always done what was asked of him and then some, to see the system properly served.

The same system that had so very nearly failed him.

And yet she knew the moment she handed him this badge, he would resume his sworn duty, to the best of his ability.

Karen wanted to give him that. To return to him what was rightfully his and should never have been taken.

As she now could. With Spencer's assistance—assistance Carlton had voluntary sought, proof right there as to how very badly he wanted to not just clear his name, but see the crime itself solved—he'd been cleared and the right man charged. And there lay yet another testament to how very strictly Lassiter adhered to the letter of the law: that Drimmer had emerged merely injured, instead of dead.

Karen wasn't sure she would have been so restrained.

She also wasn't sure why.

She was, however, certain she wouldn't be examining it all that closely. The deed was done, the case closed, and with the mandatory psychiatric evaluation that had landed in her inbox moments earlier, Lassiter was finally cleared for duty.

Which brought her back to her current contemplation of his badge.

She had already emailed him the news and informed him he was to report to her first thing Monday morning. He would no doubt be expecting her to return his badge as well as his status then. But she wanted to give it to him right now. Despite the fact that it was late on a Friday afternoon, she didn't want him to be without this very integral part of his being a moment longer than necessary.

Without further thought, she gathered her things and left, heading toward the small, neat duplex she'd visited earlier in the week. That, despite the grimness of the Wall of Crime and the not-all-that-shocking discovery of the multitudes of weapons, she'd found to be a surprisingly cheerful, light space.

Not for the first time had she found herself wondering about the conundrum that was Carlton Lassiter. Grim, but capable of moments of, if not outright cheer, then at least a dry, acerbic humor. Rigid, yet not incapable of finding pleasure in small things, like a fortune cookie offered as a gesture of acceptance or a mug of hot cocoa on a chilly day. Abrasive and oft-times exhibiting an astounding lack of self-awareness, yet when forced to confront his own shortcomings—when hit with precisely how he was perceived by the rest of the world—the well-constructed shields would fall away from the wide blue eyes and reveal a deeply wounded soul.

Awkward and arrogant, yet possessed of an inherent sweetness and a gentleness he would just as soon die rather than allow the vast majority to see.

For the longest time, she hadn't realized just how rare that last was.

As she approached his home, she glimpsed a flash of red disappearing around the next corner. On impulse, she sped up and turned the same corner, recognizing the familiar department Crown Vic. Disappointment shot through her, shocking in its intensity.

Oh, well—she supposed she could double back and leave the badge in his mailbox along with a note. Or just wait until Monday, as originally intended.

Yes, Monday would likely be best. To be able to carefully press the badge into his palm and meet his gaze and offer an apology the way she'd so desperately wanted to when she took it from him. Days later, she could still feel the words trapped in her throat. Could still feel every ounce of the same helplessness and resignation she'd seen reflected back at her in his weary blue gaze.

Days later, she remained uncertain as to why she felt such an intense desire to apologize. Except that wasn't true. She _knew_.

The weariness—the resignation… it was all due to her. Not that he _blamed_ her, per se, but more that he'd long since reconciled himself to the fact that if he was to suffer something bad—at least professionally speaking—it was likely to be at Karen's hand.

And she had lived up to that expectation, hadn't she? Delivering the worst blow of all for a man like him, a man whose entire identity was defined by who he was as a cop. She'd tried to appease her conscience by rationalizing better her than Ocampo, that Internal Affairs creep. That ghoul would have been all but rubbing his hands and cackling with glee as he took Carlton's badge, effectively neutralizing the cop he'd long considered a massive pain in his ass.

And well had Carlton known it. It had been there, amidst the resignation and the helplessness—his understanding of why she was doing it. The tacit acknowledgment, deep within his sigh, that he would have done the same damned thing in her shoes. Both in taking her badge because it was what evidence and protocol demanded and in choosing to do it himself to protect her from those who truly meant harm.

It was a helluva way to have earned his respect—and only exacerbated her guilt at so resolutely ignoring her gut instinct that he was innocent.

Oh, God—maybe leaving the badge in his mailbox was the best way after all.

Better still, returning it to him as planned on Monday. More professional. What he'd expect and be more comfortable with.

What they'd both be more comfortable with.

Yes.

Yet here she was, arguing with herself even as she continued to trail him with no real excuse or purpose. What was she going to do when he stopped? Admit she'd been following him? Why? Simply to return the badge she'd so wrongly taken?

She remained so mired in her own mental gymnastics she very nearly missed he'd come to a stop. Luckily, he appeared as engrossed in his own thoughts as she and had yet to notice her following him.

Or if he had, simply didn't care.

It was a tossup, really, except she was well aware of how very much he valued his privacy. He might not give a damn what she wanted, but he sure as hell would give a damn she was invading his space. Especially in the wake of the past week's events.

Really, she should just go home.

It was the sensible thing to do. The man had been through enough in the past week. He didn't need her intruding on what was clearly a very private, intimate, _personal_ moment.

Which was why she couldn't even begin to explain to herself why she drew her car to a stop a reasonable distance away from his and stepped out, breathing deep of the ocean-scented air. It was a stunningly beautiful spot, one of the most serene places in all of Santa Barbara County and likely to remain that way, despite the vast numbers of developers who'd done their best to get their hands on the historic oceanside cemetery over the years.

She no longer had to wonder what Carlton was doing here. The real wonder came from realizing it had been a year. Almost to the day.

No wonder Carlton tended to be such a cynic about the new year—well, more of a cynic than usual. Rather than renewal, for him the first months of the year tended to bring with it reminders of losses suffered. And appeared to have a nasty trait of inflicting new ones.

_And you just added another mark onto that tally, didn't you?_

Again, helplessness and resignation washed over her, even as she argued—

_It's not permanent. I'm returning what I took. This time, he didn't lose. He won._

_Are you so sure about that? Really?_

"Another psych eval, because I shot the son of a bitch who'd framed me and was attempting to kill me. Can you believe it?" His laugh was low and easy and colored with a ruefulness Karen had never heard from him. "Never mind—of course you can."

He'd eased down to sit beside an inset marker, long fingers plucking the rare weed before arranging the small bouquet of flowers he'd brought.

"Hell, Lucinda—it's not as if it comes as any surprise so many people want me gone. Not that I understand, because I don't. I just don't get it, because I do my job, every day, to the best of my ability, and despite the fact that Spencer insists on going out of his way to make me look like a complete ass, O'Hara and I are still able to do some excellent work. Close some really important cases. Which should be enough. But it's not. It's never enough. At least, not where I'm concerned.

"But then I finally brought in Chavez—brought the son of a bitch in and for the first time in a long time, everyone remembered I'm actually a pretty damned good cop.

"I can't deny… it felt good. I know you, of all people, would understand exactly what that means to me."

Eyes burning and throat tight, Karen moved silently away from the shadow of the tree that had shielded her, feeling even more of an intruder than before. She should never have followed.

She should never have heard those words.

She should have never taken his badge.

* * *

Monday morning, she faced him across her desk with a careful smile as she gently placed the badge back in his hand, silently promising she would never again be the instrument of its removal. A promise she made as much to herself as to him.

_Why_ that was such an important promise?

Yet another question she wasn't inclined to question too closely.


	3. YEAR THREE

**YEAR THREE  
**_**2010**_

* * *

"Yet another psych eval. Can you believe that? Never mind. I know you, of all people, can. But honestly, not completely unwarranted, given it really has been a hell of a year with a hell of a whackaloon psychopath the latest to cross our paths.

"Hard to believe the divorce could actually be considered a high point of the past year, but in retrospect, it pretty much was. It was time. Past time, really. The expectations—they were… unrealistic at best. Especially after so much time apart. Finalizing the divorce was honestly the best thing that could happen. You're probably sitting there thinking it was a long damned time coming and that's considering you weren't even fully aware of how long it dragged out—nearly three years before it was all said and done.

"So yeah, definitely a good thing—especially when you compare it to the shootouts and distraught parents and deadly pathogens that came after—one after the other and each one seeming to hold up an even larger mirror reflecting mortality. I don't know… you might argue it's just par for the course for what we do, but there were so damned _many_ close calls.

"Yin, though… _that_ might have been the absolute worst moment I've ever experienced in my entire professional career. And God knows, I've had my fair share. Now, though, I'm just…hell… I don't know—exhausted, I guess."

Karen exhaled slowly on that final soft admission, staring past her upraised knees to the leaden gray expanse of the Pacific, dotted with the occasional whitecap kicked up by the restless breeze. The skies reflected the same layered gray, signaling the brewing storm—an uncanny reflection of her own mood.

"I suppose you're wondering what the hell I'm even doing here."

She would almost wonder the same herself if it wasn't an outright lie. She knew _exactly_ why she was here. She studied the simple black granite marker, smooth and shining but for where Lucinda's name was deeply etched along with the dates of birth and death.

"I guess, first off, I wanted to say I'm sorry I eavesdropped last year. It was a private moment and the minute I realized where he was and why, I should have left. Should have gotten back in my car and driven away and never heard a word of what he had to say to you because it was between the two of you and there, it should have stayed. But at the same time, I'm not sorry, because, well…"

She sighed and ran her palm across the grass, shivering at the feel of the sharp, damp blades prickling her skin. "Knowing that he was able to confide in you—having even the slightest insight into what he's thinking makes this… I don't know—easier, I guess for me.

"You see, I can't really talk to anyone else about this—about… him. I try not to bring work home—the job encroaches on enough of my time it's the last thing my husband wants to hear about. He'll listen, of course, he'll try to be supportive, but there's a veil of... boredom, I guess you could call it, in his eyes."

_Resentment, is what you should really call it,_ a tiny voice whispered.

_Even if it is, can you blame him? The job—the people—it's practically eating you alive._

With some effort, she relaxed her fingers, smoothing out the furrows she'd left in the close-cropped grass.

"I suppose in theory, I could talk to O'Hara—under the guise of supervisor to partner—but given I'm not in the habit of seeking outside counsel on my people beyond the psych evaluations, it might raise some red flags. She's not stupid after all. But you know, I _am_ the boss and if I decide I want to talk to my Head Detective's partner about his well-being, that's my damned right. But it's a moot point because it's not something I can do anyway. Not right now. Not after what happened with Yin. She's in no shape to look beyond what happened to her nor would I expect her to. But thing is, it wasn't just O'Hara it happened to. No, Carlton's life wasn't directly threatened, but it could have been. It _has_ been."

Restless, Karen shifted her hands behind her hips and braced her weight on her arms, leaning far enough back to stare up into the sky, finding it easier, somehow. Almost as if the young detective was sitting beside her and Karen was finding it too difficult to meet her shrewd pale blue gaze.

"It's almost as if ever since his divorce, the situations in which he's found himself have become increasingly more dangerous. Intellectually, I know it's simply a matter of circumstance, but at the same time, is it, really? I honestly can't help but wonder if part of him actively seeks to be put in those circumstances. I mean, beyond the line of duty. We both know nothing short of death would keep him from _that_. But lately, it's felt different. Almost as if he's enacting some sort of… penance."

The breeze picked up briefly, the rustling through the trees sounding almost like a murmur of commiseration.

"So you understand, then?"

She pushed herself back up and propped her arms across her knees.

"It's happened again. And he hates himself for it. Especially after, well… you. And with Spencer so much a fixture, there is absolutely no way he will _ever_ allow himself to act on those feelings. He wouldn't risk her."

Karen paused for the first time feeling a cocktail of mildly foolish and defensive and maybe even a bit combative. "It's his biggest regret, you know. How he risked you. He didn't realize, you do know that, right? Aside from thinking you'd never be caught out—certainly not the way you were—he simply never considered the consequences. I suspect he assumed he was above them. At any other time—under almost any other circumstances—he might have been. But call it bad luck or even worse timing, I simply could not let that assumption stand. I think he still kind of hates me for that. Especially considering what happened to you.

"What I don't understand," she said slowly, "is how conflicted it makes _me_ feel."

She swallowed hard. "I'll never be able to tell him this, but I'm proud of him, I really am. He has sacrificed so much this last year in the name of doing the right thing and he's come out of it an even better cop, if you can believe that. A better leader—and definitely a better partner. At the same time, though, seeing so clearly how he feels and how sometimes, it seems as if he'd rather die than cause the sort of pain and turmoil that he holds himself responsible for, is… difficult."

To put it mildly. She couldn't even put words to how it had felt to watch him stare down Pete Dillingham. And that was with absolute certainty he would prevail. A thousand times worse had been reading O'Hara's report of the Salamatchia confrontation.

"He had a gun to his head and was ready to die, Lucinda. Worse still, he was… okay with it."

And yet as much as she'd already aired, the conflict that last admission made her feel wasn't one Karen was ready to put words to.

Frankly, she wasn't sure she could.

* * *

She found him waiting for her when she returned to the station.

"She's not coming back," he said without preamble, once the door to her office was safely closed behind them.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I—" He shoved a hand through his hair, the low light from her desk lamp picking up the abundant silver that appeared to have multiplied seemingly overnight. Visibly agitated, he paced the perimeter of the office finally coming to a halt at the window behind her desk. Bracing his arms on the windowsill, he stared out into the darkening late afternoon sky. "Is it because of me?"

She wasn't sure she'd heard right. "Excuse me?"

"Is it my fault O'Hara is taking leave? Does she…" Tension strung the words together, delicate and brittle, as if the slightest tug would cause them to shatter. "…blame me?"

"What?" It was rare she felt herself genuinely shocked._ "_Why on earth would you think that, Carlton? You're not the one who took her—who left her strung up in midair."

"No, I just let her be taken."

"You cannot hold yourself responsible for that. It could just as easily been any of you."

Stubborn to the core, he shook his head, unwilling to believe.

"It could have," she insisted.

"But she's _my_ partner."

"She's a cop. She knows the risks." Softer, she added, "All too well, now."

"Because I let her down."

"No."

The sharp certainty of her answer allowed him to relax, but only fractionally, his back sagging slightly, visible only because of the simple button-down and khakis he wore, rather than one of the suits he wore like armor. He wasn't due back on active duty until Monday, the department psychiatrist having mandated everyone directly involved in the case be put on leave for a week.

Except for Karen.

Never mind the executive decisions _she'd_ had to make regarding her personnel—what she'd had to watch them go through—had been emotionally traumatizing on a level she'd never expected to experience. But she was the Chief. She should have expected it.

At the very least, she should be able to handle it. Or at least, would be able to with the assistance of the weekly sessions that were scheduled for the foreseeable future.

But time off? Nope. Not for her.

Never before had she felt the weight of her responsibility more keenly. Never before had she resented it quite so much.

Never before had she felt so utterly, completely drained.

"You did _not_ let her down," she repeated softly. "You saved her. And not just because you got there in time to stop that damned clock. It was _you_ who turned her into the sort of cop who kept her head in an untenable situation. Who was willing to put a civilian above herself. She was able to do all of that because of you, Carlton."

"She should never have had to."

Karen's chest burned. He was walking a dangerous line—and she would have to do something to stop it. For the first time, she was grateful O'Hara had requested a change of duty for the foreseeable future. They all needed it.

"Carlton, she's a cop." She chose her next words carefully, understanding she couldn't allow him to know she was aware of his feelings, lest she lose the hard-won trust earned over the past four years. "Beyond the normal bounds of partnership, you can't protect her. That's doing her a disservice as a fellow officer and potentially putting both of you at risk and that, I cannot have."

His head snapped to the side, eyes sparking blue fire. "I won't work with another partner."

"I wasn't planning on giving you one. I'm just offering an observation."

"Sounds more like a warning." His voice was low and bitter.

"It's not." Once again she felt herself relentlessly pulled by the twin undertows of exhaustion and responsibility. Desperate to let exhaustion to win out and allow her to say all that was on her mind—even if she didn't know exactly what was on her mind—while responsibility urged prudence.

"You know I'm not at liberty to disclose privileged information."

"Oh yeah, I know." He spun away from the window and strode toward the door, interpreting her caged response as a dismissal.

"Carlton—"

He paused, a step shy of the door, his head turned just enough to throw his distinctive profile into sharp relief. Even in the low light of the room what she could see of his gaze blazed an intense blue, powerful enough to make her feel as if she was being pinned by a full-on Carlton Lassiter stare.

"O'Hara doesn't blame you." Karen sank into her chair, weary beyond all measure, and certain that whatever happened going forward, this moment, it was a turning point for her two detectives. "She knows she's alive because of you. But by the same token—" she paused, amending _seeing you_, to, "being here—every day—would only serve as a reminder of how close it was. She needs… time to work through that."

"I didn't." The words, no doubt intended as a typically arrogant Lassiter comeback emerged instead heartbreakingly soft.

For the first time, Karen felt a ghost of a smile cross her face, even as she ached for him.

"Yeah, well, you're one of a kind, Detective Lassiter."

He nodded and Karen could almost swear she even saw a slight quirking of the corners of his mouth. Surely a trick of the light, she thought, seeing it was set in its normally stern lines as he turned to face her.

"What about you?"

Surprised, she looked up at him. "What about me?"

"You haven't taken time off, have you." More a statement than a question—one to which they both knew the answer—but she shook her head anyway.

"Why not?"

"No rest for the wicked, I guess."

One dark brow rose and while didn't owe anyone a damned thing, she nevertheless felt herself wanting to confide something. In someone.

_In him_, the tiny voice whispered.

"I didn't go through what—" again she paused—chose her words carefully, "everyone else did."

"Bull." This time, while his voice was soft, it nevertheless emerged with typical Lassiter sharpness.

She lifted a shoulder as she rolled her pen along her blotter's surface. "It wasn't the same for me, Carlton."

His brows drew together, as if he wanted to argue further, but she couldn't. Not now—not with the maelstrom of emotion she'd been fighting for days hovering entirely too close to the surface. Who knew what might come tumbling out? With effort, she schooled her features into the Chief Vick stare that had proven so effective in the past. Proved effective now—she thought—as his features relaxed and he turned back to the door.

He paused and half-turned, his profile once against limned by the golden light from her desk lamp, rendering it somehow softer, less Detective Lassiter and more Carlton, the man she'd only so rarely had occasion to glimpse.

"You're one of a kind, too, Chief Vick."

He was gone, but the echo of his words—Detective Lassiter gruff yet colored with deeper notes she instinctively recognized as belonging to Carlton, the man—remained long after.


	4. YEAR FOUR

**YEAR FOUR  
**_**2011**_

* * *

"All hell broke loose." Karen shoved a hand through her hair. "To put it mildly.

"He did exactly what I said he'd do. He refused to risk her." Lacing her fingers together, she locked them behind her neck as she paced the small area in front of the marker. "Hell, maybe it was as much he refused to risk himself. Risk… his heart.

"I knew something had happened after the Yin case finally wrapped for good. He was just so… angry afterwards. Actually—check that—not angry, so much as cold. Distant. I hadn't seen him like that literally in years. Not since you, come to think of it.

"It finally came to a head when he asked for a new partner and… hell, I was so sunk in my own issues and what was going on in my life and the murder they were working on was so high profile and rife with diplomatic implications, that I refused to listen. I just didn't want to hear anything."

Abruptly she stopped and surprisingly, laughed. "He hooked her up to a polygraph machine, can you believe that?" She laughed again. "Why do I keep asking you that? Of course you'd believe it. This is Carlton we're talking about, capable of so very much no one would ever expect.

"He's mad at me, but then, that's par for the course isn't it? He's mad that I wouldn't listen and I think he's especially mad that I left them both with a directive to work out their silliness."

Disregarding of her dress slacks, she sank to the grass, fingers toying with the short blades. "I don't think either of them got I was taking my own frustrations out on them—ordering them to do what I couldn't do for myself. I mean… a partnership—a good one, like the one they've had—is every bit as intense and carries with it as many emotional minefields as any marriage."

She sighed, long and deep, as she leaned her head back and stared up into the cloudless blue sky. "At least, the good ones—the ones worth saving. There just comes a point where all the minefields have been detonated and there's nothing left but ashes." She sighed again. "I don't think they're there yet, but it's absolutely going to be different for them. There's a substantial rift there that while I don't think is insurmountable, is definitely going to change everything. And it's not simply because of Spencer."

She sat upright and drew her legs up enough to rest her arms across her knees. "I knew about them—or at least, I'd guessed, certainly before Carlton hooked him up to the polygraph. You'd have to be an idiot to not realize the only thing that has ever caused any kind of friction between Carlton and O'Hara is that food-obsessed ninny. Last thing I am—at least with respect to my professional life—is an idiot.

"Not that Carlton is an idiot, but when it came to O'Hara and Spencer, he definitely engaged in some willful blindness—or perhaps a desperate hope that O'Hara would have the sense God gave a cabbage to not fall for him. I can't blame him. No one wants to see the person they love go tumbling into a situation that will ultimately cause pain. And he and I, even though we've never discussed it and likely never will, both know it will."

She smiled, but it wasn't a happy one. "I will admit to some surprise that the polygraph indicated No Deception when Spencer blurted out he loved her. Judging by the expression on _her_ face, it's going to buy him some much-needed time, especially after he managed to fool the polygraph about the psychic abilities."

Rubbing her fingertips along her forehead, she softly said, "There would be another reason for him to hate me—among the many others I've given him—if he had any idea at all I've wholeheartedly shared his belief this entire time that Spencer's a fraud. I suspected from day one that Henry was lying to me. Oh, hell, who am I kidding? I _knew_ it—but I sat there and nodded my head and accepted his bald-faced B.S. because I was desperate to prove myself and I needed to keep bringing in cases and I had no idea that goddamned Interim tag would drag on for almost two years and I certainly had _no_ idea Spencer would hang around that long. Nothing in his history suggested he would stick. And by the time it became clear he was a fixture, it was too late. I couldn't expose him and risk all those cases being tossed. Couldn't risk the careers of the people I'd forced to work with him.

"And now… now he and O'Hara are involved and Carlton's left out in the cold—again. And again, it's my fault."

She blinked rapidly and pressed her lips together briefly. "If there's any consolation to be found in any of this mess, it's that I think he might have started moving past her. He and Spencer and Guster and Woody Strode—the coroner, you wouldn't know him, he was after your time and he's… special in a short bus sort of way, but maybe because of it, he's good at his job—the four of them had an… adventure, I guess you could call it."

A genuine smile emerged. "Carlton thought he'd killed someone, but it turned out he'd only shot Bobo, the Donut Man. And then had to fix him. I wish you could have seen that. It was quite something." Her smile faded. "But the upshot of that adventure is I think it finally allowed Carlton to move on—or at least, start giving himself the distance he needs to move on. Well, that and issuing a very sincere threat to Spencer that he'd shoot him if he ever hurt O'Hara, however. He doesn't realize I observed that exchange—there's something else I wish you could have seen. Carlton, hooked up to a polygraph, by his own choice, in order to prove how utterly serious he was and for once in his misbegotten life, I think Spencer actually took him at his word.

"Carlton mentioned you, by the way. Said he'd really liked you. You know how he is. Know that if he used the word 'liked' to Spencer, whom he doesn't trust worth a damn, how much deeper his true feelings must have run. I don't know if he ever told you. Likely, given when it was in his own history, he didn't, so I thought you might like to know.

"Thought you _should_ know."

The breeze kicked up, tossing strands of hair into her face. "All this time I assumed he held me primarily responsible for your transfer, although I suppose he could have just used Spencer as a handy excuse in that moment given the circumstances and the point he was trying to make." Blinking hard, she shoved the hair from her face. "He cares about his partner—but... he's ready to move on."

Her voice dropped, nearly getting lost in the stiffening breeze as she added, "Which makes two of us."

Slowly, she stood and brushed off the seat of her pants. "I don't know when or if I'll be coming back. I've got… a lot to work out. And really, it probably isn't my place to come here and unload, but odd as it sounds, you've been the only one I knew would understand. The only one I could trust. I hope you haven't minded too much."

Leaning down, she pressed her palm flat against the sun-warmed stone. "Be well, Lucinda. And thank you."

She stood, and turned, and froze as she spotted him leaning heavily against the tree where he'd been from the moment he stumbled across one of the most unlikeliest scenarios he could have ever imagined. Scratch that, there was no way in hell he could have _ever_ imagined this scenario. Ever. He could have more easily imagined himself showering with a damned bear than the sight of Karen Vick sitting beside Lucinda Barry's grave and—for lack of a better term—_unburdening_ herself to his one-time lover. Stunned into immobility, he'd listened to the low, musical voice he'd know anywhere giving a capsule account of everything that had happened in the last year, his shock growing as her confession revealed there had been at least one previous visit to Lucinda.

"_Karen_—" he said hoarsely, attempting to digest everything he'd heard. He'd been shocked to see her car when he pulled up—and he knew it was her car because he knew her license plate number by heart. In case of emergencies, mind. But while curious, he'd dismissed it as her perhaps visiting some long-buried relative. The cemetery was large and historic and she, with her long-term roots in Santa Barbara, no doubt had dozens of family members interred here. Not that he wanted her to have dozens of family members dead and buried, it was just a natural fact of life, but oh… _hell_. She was here. And so was he. There was no reason for it to unsettle him, just because he was coming to visit a former lover whose death he felt responsible for no matter how often those whackaloon shrinks—and he included Madeleine Spencer in that lot, no matter how much more cogent and intelligent than her idiot son she seemed—said he needed to let go of that guilt. That it wasn't his fault.

Yeah, yeah… they could say that until the damned cows came home, but if he'd had the restraint to keep his damned pants zipped or if he'd been more tactful with Karen about cutting Spencer loose, then Lucinda wouldn't have been transferred and she wouldn't be dead.

There was no guarantee they'd be together, but she would _not_ be dead.

Damn Maddie Spencer for oh-so-gently suggesting that it was entirely possible, regardless of circumstance, that Lucinda might still have been transferred. Or even if she hadn't, she might just as easily have been killed in the line of duty in Santa Barbara as anywhere else. Because with their jobs, one just never knew.

He would _never_—even under the pain of Chinese Water Torture or sustained exposure to Spencer and Guster during an 80s film-fest and food-a-thon—admit that that was when he finally began letting go of the guilt.

Only to have it replaced with fresh guilt when O'Hara was taken by Yin.

But that guilt had ultimately been easier to let go and it hadn't been due to any syrupy platitudes from so-called mental health professionals. Rather, it had been Karen who'd brought him back from the edge with her calm reassurances that it could have been any of them.

Funny how he was more readily able to accept a statement of that nature from her than from any shrink. Maybe it's because she was a cop.

She _knew_.

Still, though, he'd continued his visits to Lucinda, finding them… soothing. He told himself it was due in large part to the setting. He'd always had an affinity for the ocean. And dead people were quiet. None of the running around and screaming and cavorting that ruined a perfectly peaceful beach.

The visits had eased off of late, but after the events of the last few months, he really, really needed to talk.

Guess he wasn't the only one.

But… why Lucinda?

They hadn't been close—of that he was absolutely certain. Hell, he'd lay money that outside of the early months of Karen's tenure as Chief, they'd not ever had reason to ever even interact with each other. Especially after she'd been transferred out.

So… _why_? Why was Karen here, sitting beside Lucinda's grave and—for lack of a better term—spilling her guts?

About… _him_.

Oh, she'd mentioned Spencer and O'Hara, but mostly… him. And most of it was laced with a deep, genuine concern.

But… but... _why_?

"Karen?" he repeated, his voice no less hoarse than before, but it echoed through the empty cemetery with the impact of a shout.

Eyes wide and a deep, fathomless brown that dominated her otherwise pale face, she stared.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Carlton."

And before he could move, she was gone, disappearing in a burst of blonde hair and haunted dark eyes.

* * *

Exhausted, Carlton dropped heavily into the barstool and ordered a whisky rocks. Wearily, he sipped, trying, as he'd been for the past week, to figure out what the hell had happened. She was gone. Had taken some of what he knew to be much-accrued vacation time and disappeared with only a terse memo stating she'd be on vacation for the next two weeks and she was _not_ to be disturbed, italicized, underlined, and bolded—in red.

O'Hara had speculated that it was more than a simple family vacation. She'd heard from Dobson who'd heard from McNab, who'd heard from Allen, who'd heard from a friend at City Hall that they'd spotted sealed documents labeled for Family Court with the names Richard and Karen Vick.

Carlton had growled he didn't have time to play rounds of Telephone when there was crime to be solved and it wasn't exactly as if Vick was an uncommon surname now, was it?

O'Hara had wisely let it drop.

Carlton had done some quiet looking on his own and learned that yes, Karen's husband was named Richard. Beyond that, he hadn't considered any further implications of the gossip to which he'd been inadvertent party.

Correction—hadn't _allowed_ himself to consider any further implications.

It was enough he'd laid awake long into each night, reliving every word of the one-sided conversation…hell, confessional, he'd overheard. Puzzling over each statement, each word, each change in tone and nuance and most of all, puzzling over why it all seemed to center around _him_?

He'd had no idea Karen worried—and it was worry, there was no mistaking that—so over him. Hell, he had no idea she even… thought of him.

What was she thinking of him?

It wasn't pity.

That much he'd gathered.

It wasn't aggravation.

That, he was all-too-familiar with and could easily recognize.

There was genuine concern.

And… and…

Hell, he didn't know.

He just didn't know.

And now she was gone and who the hell knew what was going on with her and he wanted to call her and demand to know what the hell was going on, but instinctively understood he couldn't.

Not now.

Maybe not ever.

"I'll have what he's having." A flash of blonde hair appeared as he was blowing his nose, making his heart stutter for just a second, before he registered that the voice was not at all like Karen's.

"I hope you weren't saving this stool for somebody else."

Nothing about this blonde—curling hair, sweet face, red, red lips, bombshell dress—was like Karen.

"Do I know you? Or do you _think_ I'm someone else?"

A corner of her lush mouth lifted as she lifted her glass—whisky rocks—and clinked it against his. "So what's your story, Carlton?"

Senses immediately on alert, he demanded, "How do you know my name?"

"I asked you first." She glanced at him coyly—dear God, women didn't glance at him coyly.

"Are you a prostitute?"

She spluttered and dammit, even that was cute. "Is that the vibe I'm giving off?" Her smile faded. "I'm sorry, no… I'm just… um, I don't know—just a little—"

In that moment Carlton experienced a flash of recognition—the same flash, he realized, he'd felt from Karen back at the cemetery. "Lonely," he finished.

She nodded, a faint blush blooming across otherwise pale cheeks. "Yeah, maybe just a little bit." She cocked her head and met his gaze directly and yeah, still a bit coy. "So you gonna tell me about yourself or not?"

And in that moment, Carlton—damned tired of the women in his life, professionally or otherwise not ever talking to him directly whether he asked questions or not—made a decision. "Yep." He drained his glass and set it on the bar. "Well, you already know my name. I come here to unwind because my job can be… intense."

To put it mildly. And the people in it crazymaking, but he wouldn't be elaborating on that.

This beautiful blonde—she was uncomplicated and if she was crazymaking, Carlton had the feeling it was the _good_ kind of crazymaking that would at least serve to distract him from all the rest of the crazymaking in his life.

At least, the crazymaking women in his life.

He hoped.


	5. YEAR SIX

**YEAR SIX (In which events from YEAR FIVE also play a part, of course)  
**_**2013**_**  
**

* * *

"Left at the altar. No, I mean it—literally left standing at the altar, gun in hand, and not for any of the reasons you might think." He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. "Okay, yes, _fine_—it _was_ for exactly the reasons you might think. Happy?" The smooth granite marker remained serenely silent, which only irritated him more. He didn't need serene. He needed answers, dammit. And where had he come for them?

A cemetery. Only he would wind up in a cemetery on what _should_ have been his wedding day.

Of freakin' _course_.

"One minute she was there, absolutely resplendent in a spectacular red wedding gown, next minute, there was a shootout that had her diving into a stand of bushes for cover. After the gunsmoke cleared, I expected her to pop up, smiling, nary a gleaming hair out of place, but _nada_." He chewed contemplatively on a blade of grass as he stared out over the ocean. After everything they'd been through, a shootout seemed almost par for the course—then again, when had anything about their relationship ever been what any sane person would consider par for any course? Other than maybe some wildly out-of-control putt-putt course conceived in the depths of Spencer's and Guster's brains during a nacho-Dr. Pepper-and-psychotropic-drug-fueled nightmare.

Which would, of course, negate the sane part of the equation.

First he'd panicked that she'd been injured. But after Buzz and his thong reported the bushes were clear with no signs of blood, he'd gone into full-on cop mode, organizing a top-notch Search and Rescue operation with all the considerable resources at hand, given that the majority of the SBPD was already _there_. They'd combed the resort from top to bottom until finally, increasingly desperate, he'd even gotten up in Rizzo's grill with an almost vicious intensity, thinking maybe the second-rate mobster had taken advantage of the chaos and ordered one of his goons take her again, but no such luck.

"Turns out getting caught in the middle of a shootout gave her just enough time to develop cold feet—again. Best guess is she leopard-crawled from the brush, got clear, made it to Big Wendy's Jeep, and took off. Thank God for whatever Big Wendy and Strode got up to the night before—horrifying as it might be to contemplate. The woman was far too mellow to be anything more than mildly annoyed about the theft of her Jeep. In all fairness, too, not like she has much of a leg to stand on, considering she's the one who taught Marlowe how to hotwire cars in the first place."

Even more remarkable was that once he'd expended his rage and frustration in Rizzo's direction, Carlton had also found himself remarkably tranquil regarding this latest development in his life.

"The upside of the debacle, if it can be considered such, is that I was at least able to drop the charade that Stumpy's my best friend—now, or ever."

"I can't tell you how very relieved I am to hear that."

Unsurprised, he turned to find Karen leaning against a nearby tree—_the_ tree—the same one he'd leaned against, helpless, as he overheard her pouring her heart out to Lucinda. Right before she'd noticed him and run off.

Right before he'd met Marlowe.

And after which everything had changed.

Including the ability he seemed to have developed where some small part of his consciousness had become remarkably attuned to Karen Vick. An awareness of her presence that existed as nothing more than a faint tingling along his spine. He'd worried about it, initially, but when her demeanor remained as coolly businesslike as ever—when not so much as a single reference or even so much as a sidelong glance was ever issued with respect to that brief, stunned meeting of gazes—he, for once in his life, had held back. Instead of charging forward, both barrels blazing, demanding to know—hell, he didn't know _what_, even—he'd instead taken his cues from her. She didn't want to acknowledge that moment, well then, fine. Neither would he. They'd both proceed with their lives as before. That was just fine with him. He had Marlowe, a new life, a future—

He had _hope_, by God.

He could admit to the odd, brief curious thought—he was human after all—but any time he managed to catch her gaze, it was dark and shuttered, the brief, haunted openness he'd glimpsed in that moment in the cemetery locked tight behind a chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire, electrified, and guarded by a pair of snarling Rottweilers.

So with nothing on which to act, the awareness remained easily restricted to a deep, dark corner of his brain. But it was there. Allowing him to sense her presence behind him, well before she actually spoke.

Odd, how much he didn't mind.

She pushed off from the tree and came to drop on the grass beside him. Unlike him, she'd managed to change from her wedding finery, losing the dress, heels, and stainless steel ankle cuff she'd had to don as part of some agreement with Big Wendy's parole office, in favor of a pair of faded jeans and a long-sleeved thermal Henley, a plaid flannel shirt left unbuttoned overtop in lieu of a jacket.

She looked comfortable and warm and somehow reassuring.

"That man," she said, her tone slightly acerbic, "and I use the term incredibly loosely, is an unmitigated ass."

"No argument."

"One day, will you tell me how he wound up as your best man?"

"I'm not sure it really matters."

"Fair enough." She tilted her head as if considering, the fair ends of her hair brushing across blue plaid. "We went to your condo first—when we didn't find you there, I sent the others off to the gun range and all the various Starbucks and bars in town."

He lifted an eyebrow to which she responded with an unapologetic shrug.

"I was pretty certain I'd find you here. I was also pretty certain you didn't want the hordes descending upon you."

His brow rose higher to which she responded with a raised brow of her own. "I was a pretty damned good detective in my time, Carlton."

For the first time in hours he felt a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. "Fair enough." The smile faded as he asked, "And—?"

"There and gone," she said. "She left Big Wendy's Jeep out front along with a note of apology. When no one answered at your door, O'Hara used her spare key to let us in—looks like she took her clothes and car."

Carlton inhaled a sharp breath as Karen leaned toward him, shoulder brushing his, then inhaled another, as she handed him the envelope she'd pulled from her back pocket.

"She left this."

He stared down at his name, carelessly scrawled across the front, as if she'd been in a rush. Which she had, he supposed.

"I'll let you read in private."

"No—" He met Karen's startled gaze then followed it down to where his hand was wrapped around her wrist, effectively holding her in place.

Releasing his hold on her wrist, he nevertheless held her gaze with his own as he softly said, "Stay. Please?"

She nodded, angling herself away from him slightly in order to give him a measure of space, but otherwise remained close as promised—a warm, reassuring presence that allowed him to lift the flap on the envelope with fingers that shook only slightly.

_My dear Carlton—_

_I suspect 'I'm sorry' is going to come across as pretty lame and not at all adequate, but it's sadly the best I've got. And I suspect, that the more time elapses, the more I really _am_ going to be sorry, but at the same time, I'm doing the only thing I can do._

_As we were getting ready before the ceremony, I told Juliet and Karen, that no matter what, I knew you'd always come for me. That it made me feel safe. Please understand that was absolutely true. And I thought that's exactly what I wanted. Someone who'd take care of me, who'd be there, after I'd spent my whole life being that person for Adrian. Thing is, though, as I dove behind those bushes and for those few seconds was solely responsible for my own safety and well-being, I realized that maybe__ I __needed to be the one who'd be there for me. And the more bullets whizzed by, the more I understood I __wanted__ to be that person. And that's when I knew what I had to do. _

_Maybe it makes me a coward, but I knew if I waited to tell you in person—tried to discuss it in a reasonable manner—you'd find a way to talk me out of it. Actually, I don't even think it would have been that difficult. Thing is, even with as much as I know I __need__ to do this, I'm not sure I could have resisted your big blue eyes looking at me, all hurt and vulnerable and… lost. My nature combined with a lifetime of conditioning would demand I succumb to the urge to take care of you by allowing you to take care of me._

_Unfortunately, I don't think that's very fair to either of us._

_I know this is going to hurt you and I hate that, more than you'll ever know, but at the same time, too, I'm secure in doing this knowing you have people who'll be there for you. _

_Stop it. You take that skeptical expression off your face right this instant. You __do__. You have people who care about you—very much. Who'll take care of you and watch out for you._

_And I know it'll go against your nature, but try to let them. Unless Shawn tries to comfort you with his homemade chocolate guacamole ice cream. Then you have my blessing to shoot._

_I will always love you for rescuing me and giving me my life back, even if it did require spending some of it behind bars._

_Be well sweet man._

_Marlowe_

Without hesitation, he handed it to Karen. At her questioning look, he shrugged, then turned away slightly, mimicking her gesture of allowing a measure of privacy. He could tell when she finished by the long, slow sigh she released.

"Hell," she said softly.

"Par for the course, for me."

"Stop it," she snapped. "This is not your fault."

He kept his gaze fixed on the flat, blue expanse of the ocean, imagining just diving in and letting it carry him out…out… as far as it could take him. Far away from here.

"_No_."

Confused, he turned to look at Karen, then down to where her hand was grasping his wrist much in the way his had moments earlier. "No, what?"

"No, you don't get to run away from this—or swim or float or what the hell ever."

"I said that out loud?"

In response to his question, her grip tightened as if to pin him in place and restrain him from taking a header off the high bluff.

"Doesn't seem like _such_ a bad idea," he said mildly, bemused at the ferocity in Karen's expression. Wondering at the fact that it was the most open he'd seen her expression in well over a year.

"No," she repeated flatly. "Marlowe may have pulled a total _Graduate_—hell, she may have even had the best reason to pull such a stunt—but you don't need to."

"I don't?"

She shook her head. "You stay and you deal and you learn how to go on because it's what you _do_. Besides, how could you leave? This is your home."

"They say home is where the heart is," he retorted, although his tone was more dry than acerbic.

"And?"

"Hell, Karen, I'm not sure I have one anymore."

Her voice was soft. "A home or a heart?"

As magnetic as her dark gaze was, he nevertheless found he couldn't keep looking into it. It was too deep… too fathomless… too filled with mysteries he couldn't face right now. As if she sensed his discomfort, she turned her head, mirroring his earlier pose of staring out over the water.

"Either," he said, finally able to breathe.

Releasing his wrist, she propped her arms across her upraised knees. "You've had both here."

Her sideways glance indicated it was meant as a question. In response, he lifted a shoulder. "I've lost both, too."

She acknowledged the truth of this with a slight inclination of her head. "Still, though, it seems like as good a place as any to start."

"Start what?"

She was quiet for a long while, but oddly enough he was content to wait her out.

"Searching," she finally said.

His brows drew together as he digested the simple word. "Karen Vick, you're a damned optimist."

"Yeah." She rose to her feet in a single, fluid motion. "Don't tell anyone."

"I'll take it to my grave," he responded automatically, then felt a shiver creep along his spine as he remembered exactly where they were. "Hell."

"I somehow don't think the locals'll hold it against us."

He glanced down at Lucinda's marker, envisioning her staring at him—sort of—given his memories of her were growing dimmer with the passage of time. The memory of her rueful gaze, however, was still fairly vivid. "Still, though—"

"Why Carlton Lassiter, you're superstitious."

He glared up at her, knowing it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. Karen Vick had not only never been cowed by his glare, she was the only person who'd ever met him, glare for glare, and come out ahead, Every Single Time.

"Fine," he grumbled, reaching into his pocket and drawing out the one thing he always had on his person. "Blame the Catholic upbringing," he said as he handed it to her.

She turned the small medal on its chain over in her hand. "Saint Christopher. Patron saint of travelers."

"And bachelors," he added, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. "My mother gave it to me on my First Communion. Why I keep the damned thing—"

"Because you still need protection on your journey." She leaned down and placed it in his palm, carefully folding his fingers over it. "When it's time for a different one, you'll know."

He stared, mystified by the odd turn this conversation—hell, this _day_—had taken. "Who's superstitious now?"

"Never said I wasn't." She waited for him to slip the medal back into his pocket before extending her hand. "Hungry?"

"Not really." But he was ready to leave this place. "I could, however, use a stiff drink, except, hell—half the SBPD is crawling over every bar in town, aren't they?"

"They are." She seemed remarkably unbothered. "They are not, however, anywhere near my house." Her shoulders rose with a deep breath. "I took the liberty of grabbing some clothes from your place while we were there so you don't have to stay in those—"

He shot a glance down at his white shirt and the matching tuxedo pants.

"And there's room for you to park in my garage while you're there so if anyone happens to drive by, they won't see your car."

He took a closer look at the hand she had extended toward him—her left hand—her _bare_ left hand.

"Let me be a friend, Carlton." He glanced back into her face, noting the warm smile that almost managed to offset the closed, neutral expression with which he'd become so familiar over the past year. He found he was both relieved and mildly irritated at that—and more than mildly irritated that he was irritated.

"Let me at least start proving to you that what Marlowe said is true."

Once again, he looked down at Lucinda's marker, as if it was some Magic 8 Ball, there to provide him with an answer.

At that moment, the sun hit the black granite so powerfully, it rendered it as reflective as any mirror, revealing Karen's face, smiling down at him.

With a nod, he grasped her hand, and allowed her to help him up.

"So long as you let me help cook."

Her hand tightened on his. "Sounds almost like an unfair trade."

He squeezed back. "I could say the same."

"But you won't," she warned.

"And neither will you."

"_Must_ you always have the last word?"

"How long have you known me?" he shot back.

She turned and jogged backwards, her hair blowing in the breeze. "Not long enough, I suspect."

Stunned by her response, he was content to let her have the last word.

* * *

**AN: **Obviously, this is where we begin to veer a bit off-canon. where it goes...well, let's see, shall we?


	6. YEAR SX (Continued)

**YEAR SIX (Continued…)  
**_**2013**_**  
**

* * *

Carlton had returned from a late lunch—a solo affair since O'Hara was using a couple of personal days in order to take a long weekend with The Village Idiot she lived with—and was in the process of organizing what little was left of his workday when he happened to notice Karen through the slatted blinds of her office.

_Happened to?_

_Okay, yeah, so I check on her every once in a while._

_Wanna restate that one for the record, bucko?_

_So what if it's every day—it's still every once in a while. Technically._

_You've got a broad-ass definition of "technically." You check on her several times a day. Every day. And do we want to talk about—_

_Shut it._

_Thought so._

Okay, so the awareness he'd so successfully kept at bay for so long had broken free in a _big_ way after his non-wedding day. It was almost as if his subconscious had said _enough_ with the being circumspect, especially given that ever since that day, Karen had very gradually and with obvious caution called off the Rottweilers and if there was still barbed wire ringing the fence, at least it no longer appeared to be electrified.

As far as his stupid subconscious was concerned, it might as well have been a red flag waved in front of a bull.

Nearly four months of this increased _awareness_ and Carlton kept waiting for the guilt to pop up and jab at him with a fiery hot pitchfork—more than a little surprised with each day it didn't. Guilt was something he was so very good at after all and this was a situation ripe for the guilt demons to have a field day with him. The squeal of the tires and the gas fumes had barely faded in Marlowe's wake and there he was, _aware_ of another woman.

What the hell was _wrong_ with him?

A lot of nights spent staring up at his bedroom ceiling and he never came up with a satisfactory answer to that—at least not beyond all the things women throughout the years had told him were wrong with him. Considerable _things, _he wouldn't deny that, but nothing that seemed to directly apply to this situation, no matter how hard he tried. However, as bit by bit, Karen lowered her guard and allowed him to not only see the haunted dark gaze once again and learn more of what lay beyond, he recognized that part of why the guilt stayed away had to do in large part with the fact that he'd known her so very long. It wasn't as if this was some run-of-the-mill rebound relationship entered into on a wave of anger and hurt feelings.

For one thing, she wasn't just some random woman in whom he'd sought blind comfort. Even though there was still much about her he didn't know, he nevertheless _knew _her. When it came down to it, Karen Vick had been part of his life for longer than just about anyone else.

For another, what they had wasn't exactly a relationship.

He wasn't sure what it was, but he was fairly certain it wasn't a relationship.

Friendship, definitely. More than four months of shared coffees and drinks and meals or even the occasional movie or outing on a weekend with Iris, had irrevocably bound them in a friendship the likes of which he'd never known before.

That they were hovering about the edges of something more…

Okay, yeah, it remained something left unsaid and certainly, neither of them made any kind of a move, but it was there. Something wispy and ephemeral, yet of which they were both intensely aware. And with each layer falling away, revealing more of who Karen was behind the Chief Vick façade—with each confidence with which Carlton trusted her, that awareness only continued to grow.

What would happen when awareness grew impatient with the two of them, Carlton wasn't sure. Okay, he _was_ sure, but he wasn't so sure it _should_ happen. With his history, he was a bad risk for Karen. Not to mention, with his history, _she_ posed a huge threat to his heart.

He'd lied to her that day at the cemetery. He still had a heart. Very much so. Hurting like hell—mocking him with every beat that it still existed despite so many repeated failures. That no matter how many ill-fated attempts to obliterate it, it refused to die, the bastard, and it would go on and on, like that damned histrionic _Titanic_ song, beating and beating and beating…

Hoping…

Aching with a simple desire to have at least a piece of what seemed to come so easily to others.

He didn't want much. He just wanted someone to call his own. Someone who'd want to be his.

Forever.

But that seemed like entirely too risky a proposition for the likes of him. It had been proven, on multiple occasions, that forever wasn't in the cards for him. Better to squash the relentlessly hopeful little bastard down until it went as cold and dark as the iceberg that had taken out the Titanic. Then, maybe, he could either simply settle for someone or be content to live his life out alone.

Except—

Karen wasn't the sort of woman one _settled_ for and _she_ sure as hell wasn't meant to remain alone for the rest of her life. She was too warm, too vibrant, too damned alive to be alone.

_And I don't want her to be with anyone else._

_Good Lord, now you sound like a miserable sixteen-year-old._

_Shut it. I'm allowed to be confused. Women are confusing._

_No argument there._

_That woman, in particular, is very confusing._

_Okay, fine—normally I would agree with you, however—_

_However? What however?_

_However, right now, that woman is less confusing and more upset. _

_Huh— wha—?_

Alarmed, he glanced up once again, noting how in the however many minutes he'd been arguing with his subconscious or awareness or the damned Sugar Plum Fairy, Karen hadn't so much as moved a muscle. He wasn't entirely certain she'd breathed.

"Oh, crap," he muttered, suddenly recalling a conversation he'd had in passing with her late last week. Because she'd been concerned, he'd been concerned, but at the same time, not having had any practical experience with what she was dealing with, had been unable to offer more than general—if heartfelt—commiseration.

Then crime had happened, as it was wont to do, and he'd up and completely forgotten.

God, he sucked.

See? Forget Karen not being the sort of woman one didn't settle for—he totally did not deserve a woman like her.

_Oh, for God's sake. Shut it and go offer some damned comfort. I guarantee you, you're the one person she wants it from._

Not entirely certain, because you know, he _sucked_—like a freakin' Hoover—he nevertheless rapped on the door, before pushing it open and slipping through.

Anyone else in the station still had to wait for a summons, but he'd long since stopped waiting. And she'd never once rebuked him which, for all intents and purposes, was as good as a blessing from the Pope.

"Hey," he quietly said to the back of her head.

"Hey."

"It's this weekend, isn't it?"

Startled, she turned her head, her first such movement. "I thought you forgot."

"I thought I had, too, but I guess this—" he gestured weakly at his head, "retains more than I consciously do. It's probably saved my bacon a time or two."

"For which I am grateful."

"Can't imagine why."

Even before the words had fully left his mouth he realized they were a mistake.

"Sorry," he said more softly, inwardly cursing himself for the line between her fine, light brown brows that had deepened at his careless comment.

"I wish you wouldn't."

"So you've said."

She spun her chair to more fully face the desk. "And yet you still don't believe I mean it."

He eased into one of the chairs opposite her. "Not so much that you don't mean it as much as I don't understand."

She propped her chin in her hand and studied him. "Guess that means I need to work harder at increasing your understanding."

Her voice was soft, bridging the short distance between them and wrapping around him like an alluring wisp of smoke, much like a siren or a genie casting some sort of spell. However, intoxicating as it was, he found he could also see through the filmy veil of distraction she was attempting to throw up.

The very male part of his ego was more than a little puffed up that she saw him as _that_ sort of distraction, but—

The part that was her friend knew he couldn't allow her to avoid what was truly bothering her, because it would just come back, more ferocious and determined to burrow into her psyche and make her lose sleep and drive her completely bonkers.

Experience was a cruel bitch.

"Maybe later," he said mildly, meeting her gaze and gratified—and charmed—to see the slight blush rising from the open collar of her shirt, mottling the fair skin across her collarbones and along her throat.

"Sorry." She stared down at her hands, tightly folded on her blotter.

"Don't be. It's incredibly flattering to think you'd use me to forget."

A corner of her mouth twitched, although she kept her gaze determinedly fixed on her hands. "So willing to be a boy toy."

Keeping his voice light even as a telltale heaviness grabbed hold low in his gut, he retorted, "I live to serve."

"Tease."

"If asked nicely."

Silence descended, at once light yet charged. Too much more of this and he'd be all too willing to be used to forget. Hell, who was he kidding—he already _was_ willing.

Damned conscience.

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to lean back in his chair, very carefully crossing his legs. "Now that we've got the niceties out of the way, how are you really feeling?"

All semblance of humor dissipated along with the charged, slightly aroused air, although just enough remained crackling between them to reassure him it hadn't simply been a mere distraction.

_D'uh. You already knew that. Dumbass._

_Look, you're the one who told me she was hurting and needed me to be a friend. That's all I'm trying to be here, okay?_

A faint grumbling was overridden by Karen's long sigh.

"Kinda crappy."

"Why? Outside of the obvious," he added quickly.

"It just feels so soon, even though it's been well over a year." She sighed and unfolded her hands, flexing her fingers rhythmically before spreading them across the felt. Carlton found himself staring at them, slender and pale against the bottle green felt, her nails unpainted and kept professionally short.

Pretty hands.

"I hope she's nice, but how could she be otherwise—I can't see Richard dating anyone who's not nice." Her mouth twitched, but it wasn't with a smile. "Well, outside of me."

"Hey—" He straightened in his chair and hit her with the stare that had worked on many a perp, gratified to see her squirming slightly. "If I'm not allowed, you're not either. Besides, I'd lay money Iris would be the first to say you're nice."

_And I'd be the second._

"You didn't see the _discussion_ we had last night over the importance of math homework. She didn't think I was very nice then."

Having been witness to a few of the mother/daughter _discussions_, Carlton could well imagine. "Thus adding to your worries today."

The flush spread across her collarbones and up her throat once again, this time reaching far enough up to stain her cheeks. "Stupid, I know."

"I don't think so."

She cocked her head and shot him A Look.

"I don't," he repeated. "And trust me, I know from feeling stupid without reason. With reason, too, come to think of it."

Her look immediately dissolved into something softer. Something that left him shifting in his chair out of more than just desire.

"It kind of sucks—this feeling."

"It does," he agreed.

"What if Iris likes her better than me?" Karen's voice was low and miserable. "Especially since Richard obviously likes her a great deal—enough to be introducing her to Iris this weekend."

"No matter how much Iris might like her or any other woman he might introduce her to in the future, there's one thing not a one of them is ever going to be able to match."

"I know."

"Do you? Really?" Anger flashed through him, staggering in its intensity and prompting him to lean forward and cover those slender, pale hands with his own. "Do you understand just how important it is that you're Iris' mother? It means something, Karen. Hell, it means _everything_. Even when your mother is perpetually angry and confused about her sexuality and resents the hell out of you because you look and act too damned much like the worthless son of a bitch she was unlucky enough or stupid enough, depending on the day, to have procreated with, she's still your mother and even at her angriest, she will _always_ be there for you."

He inhaled a harsh gasp and tried to fall back into his chair, but found himself pinned in place in part by her stare and in part by her grip on his hands. At some point during his tirade, she'd shifted, turning her hands so they were palm to palm with his, her fingers tight around his wrists. Both index fingers lay against the insides of his wrists, resting directly against where his pulse beat rapidly.

"You're right," she said softly.

"I usually am," he retorted automatically, mesmerized by the oddly intimate feeling of resistance from the pads of her fingers pressing gently as they stroked soothing circles over his pulse points.

"No one can take away the fact that I am Iris' mother and always will be."

"Damn straight." And why did his voice sound as if it was coming from a great distance? Disembodied and not quite his own and feeling as if the only thing keeping him anchored was the feel of her hands around his.

"Just as no one can take away the fact that you are a very, very nice man Carlton Lassiter."

"Okay." The words registered a half-second later, bringing him back—sort of. "Damn, walked right into that one, didn't I?"

Her laugh was as light and airy as her hold was powerful. "You kind of did."

"Tricky woman." But his grumble was belied by his hands tightening around hers, prompting a subtle jump in her pulse and a quick catch of breath he felt as keenly as if it had been his own. Hell, it might have been. Smugness warred with desire and were both trumped by a quiet sense of satisfaction, all three emotions rolling through him with a swift intensity that left him a bit breathless himself.

"How about I make up for bruising your delicate male ego by buying you a drink?"

He yanked his hands free and slumped back into his chair, arms crossed over his chest. "My ego is _not_ delicate."

An eyebrow rose. "Uh-_huh_."

He fought to keep his typically stern expression. "Just for that, _I'm_ buying dinner."

"If you insist, but I get to choose tomorrow's movie."

Halfway out of his chair, he paused, then slowly stood the rest of the way. "Um, yeah… about that—"

She glanced up from gathering files into a neat pile. "You have other plans?" Her voice held a plaintive note and damn if her stricken wide-eyed expression didn't puff his male ego right back up.

"No, but…" He fidgeted from foot to foot, feeling a lot like the twerpy sixteen-year-old he'd been once upon a time. "I thought maybe we'd do something different—especially since it's just going to be the two of us."

The words emerged in a single whoosh of breath and about a half-octave higher than his normal register and Lord, he really _was_ a twerp. They'd been doing things together for months. Sometimes with Iris, more often than not, alone. Why should this be any different?

Her expression relaxed and she stood, moving around the desk to stand directly in front of him. "Like what?" Her voice was husky and sweet and more than just his male ego was getting puffed up and oh, hell no, it was definitely too soon for _that_, no matter how many double entendres they'd been slinging in the past half-hour.

"I'm not sure yet," he admitted. "I just know I want to do something… different. Something a little extraordinary. For an extraordinary woman." He felt his front teeth sink into his lower lip in the dead giveaway tell he'd fought for years to overcome. At the way her eyes widened, deep black nearly overwhelming the brown, he reconsidered giving it up and instead, filing it away to use on special occasions.

"Okay." Her voice had gone from husky to hoarse, which in turn increased his fidgetiness.

"You know, I think I'm ready for that drink," he managed once he pried his tongue loose from the roof of his very dry mouth.

"Yeah, me too," she agreed. She turned to collect her things, then turned back again. "D'you think we can be trusted with liquor?"

As desire flared hotter, he simultaneously felt a measure of calm wash over him. "Yes," he said confidently.

Male ego started strutting like a damned peacock at the disappointment that very obviously darkened her features for a brief moment before he dropped kicked it into submission.

"I shouldn't tease," she said.

"Is it just teasing?" he asked.

Once again, her pupils widened. "No," she said simply, and his nerve endings fried in an instant, leaving him feeling as intensely warm as the one and only time he'd ever suffered a sunburn.

"You deserve special, Karen. Let me give it to you?"

"Oh Carlton—" She stepped close and delivered her next words in a whisper. "You already have."


	7. YEAR SIX (Still)

**YEAR SIX (Still—because it's turning out to Not Suck)  
**_**2013**_**  
**

* * *

She gasped, a soft, rapid intake of breath that echoed in his ears and sent a shiver down his spine.

"Oh, Carlton," she sighed, her hand reaching for his and holding tight. "Oh… _Carlton_."

Carlton felt his own breath hitch in his chest at the sight of her, eyes wide and deep brown with a combination of surprise and pleasure, mouth parted slightlyand thought, _this_—this was exactly what he'd hoped for when he'd shown up at her house this afternoon.

He remained only barely aware of the pilot's voice as it droned through the headset pointing out the dusty sandstone and pine tree-crested summit of La Cumbre Peak as the 1930s-era biplane banked south. An instant later, they cleared the summit, bringing Santa Barbara into full view, intimately nestled between the massive mountains and vast ocean looking like little more than one of Iris' pastel-hued toy cities. Seemed so calm and innocuous from this altitude, Carlton thought. So incapable of producing the sort of mayhem of which both he and Karen were entirely too aware. After a lazy circuit over the city they knew so well, yet didn't know at all—not from this perspective at any rate—the pilot steered back toward the waterfront where they flew directly over the Psych offices, allowing Carlton to entertain a brief, delightful visual of obliterating it with a giant burrito bomb that would smother Spencer in a giant mass of sour cream and refried beans that would take him at least two weeks to eat his way through and from which he would emerge so bloated, he'd be utterly unable to move—sort of like a beached whale.

At the quizzical look Karen slid his way, he realized he must have been smiling in that dreamy way only fantasies of a debilitated Spencer seemed to inspire. He mouthed _Later_, and grinned again as she smiled and shook her head. She knew him so damned well. Had learned to read his expressions to a scarily accurate degree and often—and okay yes, correctly—admonished him for uncharitable thoughts, often while smothering her own laughter at the vivid imagery he would bring to life for her.

He wondered if he hadn't taken to deliberately creating more of these mental scenarios—or at least allowing them to show more readily in her presence—solely for the purpose of making her laugh.

He loved her laughter.

He loved being able to bring it out in her.

Leaving the waterfront behind, they headed out over open water, only the Channel Islands breaking up the expanse of deep blue like irregular emeralds scattered across the velvet of a jeweler's tray.

He felt more than actually heard her soft, "_Ohhh_," as the pilot banked once more, turning west to hug the coastline on a course which allowed for a spectacular view of the sun painting the sky in fiery streaks of red and pink and orange as it dipped below the horizon. Below them, a pair of surfers rode a final perfect wave in toward the dusk-shrouded shore, blue-black night rippling and unfolding in their wake. Behind them, a smattering of stars appeared in the deepening sky, heralding the full night that would soon fall and God, but she made him feel downright poetic.

Or at least made him look at things through completely different eyes.

"Oh, _Carlton_," she breathed into her headset's microphone, her hushed voice cutting through the static and the wind rushing through the open cockpit and rendering his name musical in a way he'd never heard it before. Her hand shifted in his, lacing their fingers tightly together—easily the most intimate contact they'd ever shared.

He smiled and squeezed her hand gently in response, but otherwise remained silent for the remainder of their flight, content to watch the range of expressions crossing her mobile, expressive face.

Once on the ground, he helped her from the plane, then carefully pulled off the old-fashioned goggles and leather helmet from her head, smoothing her soft hair back into place. After they both shrugged off the borrowed leather bomber jackets—all part of the "authentic" experience as well as providing the same sort of protection the goggles and helmets had—they silently headed back to his car, their hands automatically finding each other. It wasn't until they stood beside the open passenger door that she finally spoke.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

She briefly glanced past him to the control tower and hangars before meeting his gaze again. "It was… extraordinary."

Carlton smiled and inclined his head, acknowledging her use of his word. Pleased his plan had had its intended effect of both surprising and pleasing her.

"Why this?"

Now he fidgeted, feeling the beginnings of a blush although he answered without hesitation. "I thought you might enjoy seeing something familiar from a different perspective."

The blush intensified as she stared up at him intently, making him grateful for dusky twilight surrounding them. Mesmerized, he stood absolutely still as her hand slowly rose to his face, her fingertips tracing maddeningly light lines across his brows, his cheeks, along his jaw and over his mouth where they rested for a brief, intoxicating moment.

"I've been doing that for a while now."

His heart did a pitch-and-roll as if they were still up in the plane, swooping low over the water, blood rushing through his ears like the wind through the open cockpit. At the same time, however, he felt remarkably calm as he lowered his head, certain in the knowledge she wanted this just as much as he did.

Karen's mouth beneath his was as lush and soft as he'd imagined—and oh, hell yes, he had imagined it, that he wouldn't deny. Perhaps the slightest bit dry from prolonged exposure to the wind and sun during the plane ride, a condition he soothed by running the tip of his tongue along her lips, tracing the outline and the seam, increasing the pressure slightly in silent question. In response she tilted her head back to a more accommodating angle and parted her mouth, her tongue emerging to meet his in a sensuous secondary kiss. With a groan, he buried his hands in her hair, twisting the silky strands around his fingers, kissing her more deeply still. Karen's kiss was heat and strength and softness—intoxicating enough to leave him feeling as lightheaded as the finest single malt.

Blindly, he stepped forward, gently pushing her against the car and moving in closer still until they stood flush, chest to thighs—breath to breath. Her arms wound around his back, hands splayed wide across his shoulder blades, drawing him closer still.

As if she couldn't get enough.

He sighed at the feeling, nuzzling the soft, fragrant skin of her throat and marveling at how seamlessly they fit together despite her much smaller stature, especially without the heels she so habitually wore. As if to compensate, she shifted, rising on tiptoe and wrapping one leg around his thigh, allowing the other to insinuate itself between his legs, turning herself into a sinuous, living rope.

He dropped one hand to her leg, his fingers tightening briefly over smooth denim-clad muscle before he lifted her another fraction of an inch, surging forward, his mouth finding hers again, locked together as intimately as possible considering they were both fully clothed.

_But not for long if this keeps up. And this isn't the time or place. Not yet. _

Shaking his head, trying to dispel that annoyingly reasonable voice, his teeth caught on her lower lip, making her gasp then, as he did again, slower and with a bit more pressure, sigh, the sweet sensation countered by the decidedly _not_-sweet feel of her thigh rubbing between his legs, stroking his erection with jerky, stuttering motions that clearly conveyed her own arousal and impatience.

_And definitely not _here_, you chucklehead—not unless you want to get busted for public indecency._

Carlton groaned against her throat.

_You suck, you know that?_

_Yeah, yeah… cry me a freakin' river._

Still, though, he wasn't quite ready to abandon Karen's embrace, nor did it seem as if she was in any great hurry to stop herself, what with the way her arms had shifted, one draped around his neck, her fingers toying with his hair, the other on his chest—literally, on his chest—having unfastened just enough buttons to allow her to slip her hand inside his shirt, where it lay directly over his racing heart.

Holding it.

"Carlton," she sighed, her voice sounding much like it had in the plane, yet lower, huskier, sending a shiver down his spine, imagining that voice calling his name as he brought her to a climax.

But not yet.

Slowly, he slowed his kisses, lessened their intensity as he stroked her hair and her arms, as if to settle. Picking up his cues, she responded in kind, her touches no less sweet and deliberate, but lighter, her fingers carefully refastening the buttons she'd so smoothly undone, her fingertips teasing the base of his throat as her teeth gently tugged at his earlobe, the tip of her tongue soothing the slight sting. Finally they stood, foreheads touching, hands linked, their breathing only slightly labored.

"There are rumors about you, Carlton Lassiter."

A breathless laugh escaped. "Rumors?"

"You are supposed to have quite the skill set in the bedroom."

Heat flooded his face and he kept his gaze resolutely focused down on their hands. "Ursula Gibbs has a big mouth."

O'Hara had told him, glossing over the details, thank _God_, why the woman had behaved in such utterly cracked fashion in the wake of Marlowe's release. Beyond her usual crackedness, that is.

"That may be, but be grateful she has such a rep for being such an unstable nutbar."

He reared back, "Why?"

A smile he could only describe as truly evil—and kinda hot, really—turned up the edges of Karen's lovely, wide mouth. Seeing her lips, reddened, slightly swollen, the skin around visibly pink, even in the rapidly dimming evening light, all he could think was he didn't give a rat's ass why Ursula was such an unstable nutbar, because all he wanted to do was kiss that beautiful, soft, lush mouth again. And more. And feel it kissing him back.

Everywhere.

"If you don't stop looking at me like that, you'll never find out why it's a good thing Ursula's so nuts _and_ whatever good intentions you have are going to go flying straight out the proverbial window."

"Good intentions can bite me," he grumbled as he freed one hand to cup her face, running his thumb over her mouth. He recognized the mischievous intent in her gaze an instant before her teeth bit down on the pad, gentle, with just a hint of a sting, making heat shoot through his groin and leaving his slacks marginally tighter than they'd been seconds before.

Dear God, but making love with this woman was going to be…

Wow.

Yeah.

_But. Not. Tonight… Asshat._

_Why? _his sulky inner sixteen-year-old whined.

_Because _you_ want forever. And _she's_ a forever sort of woman. But are either of you ready to be promising that right now? Really?_

Dammit. That voice of reason was really starting to piss him right the hell off.

"So why should I be grateful?" he managed to garble around the feel of her tongue leisurely teasing the surprisingly sensitive skin between thumb and forefinger.

"Hm?" She glanced up, surprised, as if she'd forgotten what they'd been discussing and the sole most important and interesting activity in her life was exploring the terrain of his hand. With her tongue. And her teeth.

"Karen," he groaned, freeing his other hand from hers in order to grip her neck and gently draw her head up. "Baby, please."

Once again that evil smile graced her features, tempered somewhat by a definite hint of cat-that-ate-the-canary.

"You're out to kill me, aren't you?"

Straight white teeth emerged and dug into her lower lip as she lifted a shoulder. "Oh no… not kill."

"Then what?"

She rose on tiptoe and whispered in his ear, "Conquer."

_Goodintentionssuck dammitalltohell OhmyGodIhavetohavethiswoman _

_Soon._

His hand convulsed momentarily on the back of her neck, his thumb resting right over the strong, irregular beat of her pulse. At least he wasn't the only one affected. "I've got the white flag ready."

"I suspect with you, half the fun's going to be in the act of conquering."

Breathe. Heart. Beat. _Now_. Dammit.

"What the hell did Ursula Gibbs say, anyhow?"

Karen lowered herself back down, her hands finding a natural resting place on his waist. Comfortable. Possessive. "Doesn't really matter. Needless to say, it was _very_ complimentary."

"Very?"

A delicately arched brow rose. "_Very_. And like I said, good thing she has such a rep, because no matter how often or how enthusiastically she sang your lovemaking praises, no one actually believed her."

Carlton was torn between annoyance that no one wanted to believe he was capable of being a masterful lover and grateful, because it had spared him being pursued by any other Ursula-wannabes. Last thing he needed was some sort of _Fatal Attraction_ scenario, with a crazy in hiding in his bathtub.

"Hey, what's that face?" he asked as her expression shifted, a slight frown drawing her brows together and pulling at the edges of her mouth.

"Nothing." She shook herself, as if shrugging off a ghost. "It's silly."

"What is?" He was confused. Then angry. Ready to slay dragons if necessary. "What is it, sweetheart?" Then dismayed. "Did I… do something?"

His head was spinning from the emotional whiplash, but through the onslaught, one thing remained prevalent—he had to fix this. Had to fix whatever was making her look… sad. A fist grabbed hold of his heart and twisted and that was the precise moment he _knew_.

"_No_—" Alarmed, she looked up. Lifting one hand from his waist, she moved it to rest directly over his heart. Once again holding it. "No, honey, you didn't do anything. I swear. This one is all on me and my silliness."

He put his hand over hers on his chest, folding his fingers protectively over hers. "Nothing can possibly be that silly."

"Trust me, this is." Her nose wrinkled, then she sighed, resigned. "I'm… jealous."

Carlton felt his eyebrows climb his forehead. "Of what?"

Her gaze dropped. "Ursula," she said so softly he found himself leaning in close to better hear. "And… Marlowe. I'm jealous of what they had with you. Which is ridiculous, really, because, you know, you were a single man and completely free to be with whomever you wanted and—"

"And you weren't available," he broke in, interrupting her miserable rush of words.

Startled anew, she looked up at him, clear disbelief reflected in the wide, dark depths of her eyes. Carlton felt his breath catch at the look in her eyes—at the fact that it was this woman staring up at him with such wonder and hope. Good Lord, but she was so very, very pretty. Elegant, beautiful, stunning, even, but at the heart of it, just so very pretty.

"It's true," he said softy, his free hand stroking her hair back from her face. "If I'd had any inkling whatsoever that you were not only available, but interested in the likes of me, no one else would've stood a snowball's chance in hell."

"Nuh-uh," she breathed, clearly still unable to believe and something about the shy girlishness of her response gave him the courage to confess something he'd kept strictly confined to the deepest darkest recesses of his mind and heart, only allowing himself to admit it on the very rarest of occasions. Because do so more often would have been akin to inviting madness.

He had enough madness in his life, thanks.

Very softly he said, "After Iris was born—after being there and… and holding her—I would sometimes imagine that she was…" He swallowed. "Mine." He was desperate to look away—so fearful of what he might see—but forced his gaze to remain fixed on hers. "I would sometimes imagine _you_ were mine."

He'd faced down killers, survived the demise of a marriage, and the loss of a fiancée. He'd lost one partner and had to save another from the clutches of a psychopath—hell, he'd survived day-to-day interaction with Shawn Spencer, bear traps, raging rivers, gun-toting Serbians _and_ being his mother's son, but never in his life had he been as terrified as in this moment, waiting to hear Karen's response to his confession.

"Oh."

_Not_ what he'd expected.

Not that it was bad. Not at all. That single, small word was definitely not bad, not the way she breathed it out, her eyes wide and dark, her mouth, that beautiful mouth still bearing evidence of his kisses, parted only just enough to allow that single small word to escape.

"I am _such_ an idiot."

_Definitely_ not what he'd expected.

"_Why_?"

"Because I _should_ have realized sooner—" Her hand pressed more firmly against his chest, as if she was trying to absorb him.

"Realized what?" Because she couldn't possibly be saying what he thought she was sayi—

"That I was interested in you," she finished in a breathless rush. "That I was… available."

She was saying what he thought she was saying. His hand tightened on hers over his heart. Hell, he was ready to rip the thing out and present it to her on a silver platter.

An instant later, that poor beleaguered muscle tightened with a new pain at the expression of dismay that crossed her face.

"By the time I did realize, you were… were—"

"Involved with Marlowe," he finished when she faltered, staring up at him helplessly. He recalled, as vividly as if it had only just happened, Karen's flushed face as she rushed past him at the cemetery. Her breathless, panicked, "Sorry," as she'd disappeared and hadn't been heard from for the next two weeks.

That was when she and her husband had filed for divorce, he knew.

What Carlton didn't know, however, was how long it had taken to get to that point. After all, if anyone knew how great the distance between Point A and Point B could stretch, it was definitely him.

"Yeah." She sighed and leaned forward, resting her head on his chest. Strands of her hair tickled skin exposed by the open neck of his shirt, causing a renewed frisson of arousal, but a quiet one, allowing itself to be overridden by the desire to provide comfort.

He wrapped his free arm around her, holding her close as her muffled "Our timing is unique, to say the least," drifted up.

"It's uniquely ours," he countered, stroking her hair. "And we're here now."

"Yeah, we are." She lifted her head and met his gaze, the light from the full moon gilding her features with a silvery glow.

She was a goddess. The woman was flat-out a goddess, shades of silver and gold, that should have rendered her wispy and ephemeral—damn near untouchable, the way he'd long imagined her—but she wasn't. She was warm and real and in his arms and she wanted him.

She wanted _him_.

* * *

It had been a beautiful moment, Carlton would later recall. A beautiful, charged, perfect moment, filled with promise and hope.

At least he'd have that.

They'd left the airport and gone to dinner. Nothing fancy, just a small Italian joint they both loved, and over pasta and Chicken Piccata and a couple bottles of wine and a shared tiramisu, they'd talked. About everything and nothing—even about how, despite how badly they wanted each other, they both wanted to wait. Just a little longer. Not because they weren't certain, but because they _were_.

In retrospect, a good decision, Carlton would also later recall. Because at least, when he'd driven her home, it hadn't been with any expectation that the night was only beginning. That he'd be staying.

Because at least there hadn't been any disappointment over scotched plans as he'd pulled into her driveway to discover the lights blazing from her house and spilling from the front door as it had opened. Instead, there had been concern tinged with a hint of panic—on both their parts—as Iris had rushed out, tears streaking her face, a chagrined Richard following behind.

And Carlton had _known_, in the way he had of knowing these things, that their time—his and Karen's—

It hadn't yet arrived.

And maybe… it never would.


	8. YEAR SEVEN

**YEAR SEVEN  
**_**2013**_**  
**

**AN: ** I know most who've written post-S7 fics have assumed the events of "No Trout About It" to have taken place over Memorial Day weekend, since it was stated the race took place over a holiday weekend. For the purposes of this particular fic, I'm taking artistic license and moving those events forward to Labor Day weekend instead.

* * *

"Oh, Lucinda, I really and truly screwed up."

Dropping onto the ground beside the polished granite marker, Karen sighed, as she had so many times throughout this insane day—hell, this insane _week_, what with that blowhard Trout descending like a plague of locusts. It had been hell watching the chaos wrought by the Leo Quinn case unfold, and what the devil had she been thinking, allowing Spencer to attempt to explain _anything_ to someone like Trout?

She hadn't been thinking, that's what. Uncharacteristically thrown by the appearance of the malevolent police consultant, she'd reverted to habit, failing to exercise her authority—or wield a sledgehammer—and predictably, all hell had broken loose. It was as she'd described, a circus. A circus that got results, admittedly, but a circus, nevertheless—one to which she'd stood by, too often bystander rather than the ringleader she should have been. And the excuse she'd fallen back on for so long—that no one ever actually allowed Spencer to do anything, he just _did_—could no longer hold water. The simple truth was, she'd convinced herself that the results—the end game—were what really mattered, certainly more than the physical and emotional effort it would take to force Shawn to toe the line. Yes, they'd gotten the bad guys and yes, that _was_ important to all of them, a truth she'd seen reflected in all their expressions, but those victories hadn't come without considerable collateral damage. Maybe she had ultimately fallen on the sword, but before making that final, fatal sacrifice, she'd allowed too many people—had allowed _one_ person in particular—to be the designated clowns for the three-ring spectacle that was Shawn Spencer.

_God_, how it had pained her to watch Carlton, clearly recognizing the writing on the wall, at first kowtow to Trout before completely losing his mind and attempting to choke the life out of Spencer.

Not that she could blame him—on either score.

Nor could she blame him for trying to protect himself at all costs. Which had made his willingness to leave himself open—just a little—for _her_, humbling. And eye-opening.

Reaffirming in a million small ways that had nothing to do with her job, that she had been a fool. An utterly thoughtless _fool_.

In the wake of her announcement he'd wanted to embrace her—offer comfort. She'd seen it in the subtle movement he'd made her direction after she'd extricated herself from Shawn's stranglehold—had seen it reflected in the stormy, conflicted blue of his eyes. _She_ was the one who'd drawn back—had shook her head, ostensibly warning off O'Hara, who'd been closer, but in reality, shying away from Carlton. Her heart had hurt, watching his hands drop helplessly to his sides but she knew if he touched her, he would realize exactly how badly she'd screwed up. And he'd know exactly how little of a damn she gave about her job.

She _knew_—if he touched her—there was no way in hell she'd ever be able to let go and the secret she'd held close for so long would have been revealed for everyone—and God forbid, Trout—to see. God only knew what the son of a bitch would do if he got even the faintest hint of a whiff of her feelings.

She couldn't do that to Carlton. Not with going on suspension and leaving him behind to face the music.

"I am okay with the suspension, though, I really am…"

Her voice drifted off, because while there were aspects of it she was dearly looking forward to, like picking Iris up from school, as she'd declared in the bullpen with a falsely bright smile that her glass fish had refuted with a rueful glance up at her from her box of belongings, there were other aspects—okay, only one—that she was already desperately missing.

"Who knows? Maybe now, away from the job, I can tell him… can explain—"

Explain what? That she'd given her husband another, extremely reluctant, chance after he begged—after _Iris_ had begged. Who would have ever imagined that Iris would react so badly to Richard's girlfriend, especially when she'd so readily accepted Carlton's presence in her mother's life?

But Carlton hadn't been introduced into her life as Mommy's boyfriend. He had just been a friend. Iris, a true child of her generation, having friends who were both boys and girls, hadn't thought anything more of it. Carlton simply being Mommy's _friend_ had allowed the little girl to somehow foster the idea that her parents living apart was merely a temporary thing, despite papers being signed, and the amount of time that had elapsed since her parents had lived together, not to mention, her deep familiarity with divorce, given how many of her friends had parents who were divorced.

"It's just that Richard's reasoning was so… so… reasonable," Karen explained, beyond feeling silly talking to a ghost. _Who_ the hell else did she have to talk to at this point? At she could be reasonably certain Lucinda wouldn't judge… much.

"He thought, even though it had been well over a year since our divorce, maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if we spent time together as a family. Maybe even did some things, just the two of us—to make sure."

She dropped her head to her upraised knees. "I was sure," she whispered to the warm, late summer air. "I don't know how much more sure I could have been, but it was for Iris, so how could I say no?"

Lifting her head, she stared blindly out over the ocean that reflected so many shades of blue, just like the eyes of the man she'd been so completely sure about. For an instant, the sun slipped behind a cloud, shrouding everything with a gray film, much like the gray that had obscured the brilliant blue as she'd explained to him maybe they needed to take a step back.

For Iris' sake.

He'd remained silent, unsmiling, allowing her to state her case. And then she'd said the most damnable thing—

"I had the sheer nerve to say maybe we could just stay friends. The way we'd been."

Another cloud scuttled across the sky as the wind picked up.

"Yeah, the irony didn't escape me either." She ran a finger along the smooth green stems of the lilies she'd brought to lay across the top of the marker. "He said yes, of course, friends. Just like before. Except we both knew we hadn't been friends before. Not really. And you know how he is. He went completely silent and closed in on himself. I wondered if he came to talk to you then."

The problem with talking to ghosts, Karen thought, was they had this irritating habit of remaining silent or communicating only in the most obscure of ways. Just when she would have most needed to know what Carlton said—how he'd felt, if he was okay, even though she knew, in the deepest, most protected corner of her heart where everything Carlton resided, that no, he was most assuredly _not_ okay. Oh, he'd smiled, filled her mug when they happened to run into each other at the coffee bar—an event usually engineered by her constant vigil on his movements than actual chance, but the conversations—those had stopped. The lunches and dinners and casual get-togethers that included Iris—gone as if they'd only ever existed as a figment of her imagination.

He resumed waiting for a summons to enter her office.

For her part, she'd found her "dates" with Richard clouded with thoughts of Carlton—comparing her generally genial ex to the cranky, withdrawn man who in private was anything but. More distressingly, she found the excursions Richard planned, while thoughtful in their own way, to be merely more of the same as when they'd been married.

Safe.

Familiar.

There was no sense he wanted anything new from their relationship. That he wanted them to grow beyond what they'd been. That he wished to give her… the world.

She told herself she was being selfish. And unfair. And unrealistic. That eventually, even the best relationship with Carlton would have settled into the familiar because that's simply what happened over time.

_Liar_, that little voice had whispered. _You've known him for nearly nine years and in all those nine years, has he ever failed to surprise you? Has he ever failed to prove that he's content to be satisfied with the status quo? There might be structure to your life together because God knows the man lives for structure, but you know damn well that life with Carlton Lassiter would never, _ever_ be boring._

A bottle of wine had failed to shut the damned voice up and left her with a hell of a hangover to boot.

Then came the first time Richard arrived at the house they used to share with a tired smile and begged off their plans because of exhaustion—suggesting maybe they just order in and watch a movie or something with Iris. She'd actually been relieved because at least she wouldn't have to muster the energy to pretend to be enthusiastic. The second time it had happened, just two weeks later, she acknowledged feeling a frisson of annoyance. Before long, routine had settled in and they'd found themselves mired in the same rut in which they'd been prior to their divorce and with which _Richard_ had declared himself dissatisfied. The dissatisfaction that had him initially prompted him to suggest that maybe they were no longer as compatible as they'd once been. That maybe...they needed to move on.

The same dissatisfaction he expressed yet again.

Not that she could blame him.

Sure, she'd agreed to this experiment but she had hardly been an enthusiastic participant. Habit had been all too easy to fall back into and maybe she'd even subconsciously welcomed it, knowing it would hasten the demise of this plan.

The real key, however, had been when Iris had idly asked why Carlton hadn't been around lately and it was as if the proverbial light bulb—hell, an entire theatre marquee's worth—had lit up over Karen's head, illuminating how thoroughly wrongheaded she'd been. It had been a mistake to give this another shot. She should have simply said no to Richard—worked harder to make it clear to Iris that Mommy and Daddy loved her very much, but simply couldn't _be_ together. They would always be a family, but it couldn't be as a unit. Their lives would go on, with new people—like Carlton, for example—sharing time with them.

It's what she _should_ have done. An error in judgment she corrected.

"This time it was me who put the brakes on. Figured it was only fair, given I gave it a shot when I _knew_ damned well it would never work. Or maybe more accurately, that I didn't _want_ it to work. But I was so damned scared—"

Yep. Pure, unadulterated, lily-livered fear. Because what all those fluorescent bulbs had illuminated in painfully excruciating detail was that it hadn't been Iris' desires or any reasonable arguments on Richard's part that had compelled her to give this experiment a shot so much as it had been pure fear.

One kiss with Carlton and her entire world had shifted on its axis.

One kiss with Carlton and she'd known her entire world was on the verge of changing. In ways she wasn't maybe ready to face.

_Coward,_ the little voice had whispered.

And she couldn't even bring herself to argue.

She had, however, drunk the majority of a bottle of Carlton's favorite whisky, cursing herself the entire time for excessive stupidity.

And then her whole world had gone and changed anyhow.

"I screwed up, so damned badly, Lucinda. But now, maybe I can make amends. I know he's so slow to trust and I know I hurt him, but do you think maybe I have a shot at earning his forgiveness? At… redemption?"

At that moment, her cell phone rang, as if in response—or summons.

Her heart flipped for a brief moment before she registered who was calling.

"O'Hara, it's kind of you to call, but honestly I'm—_what_? Wait a minute...wait—wait— He _what_?"

She listened, her jaw dropping, to the younger woman breathlessly recounting how events had unfolded after her departure earlier that afternoon.

"Son of a bitch," she muttered, pushing herself up off the grass.

"No… no, he hasn't called me. Honestly, I would imagine I'd be the last person he'd call."

Then felt her heart skip a beat—or six—at O'Hara's next words.

"Oh." She put a hand to her suddenly heated cheek. "_Oh_… he said that? Really?"

And couldn't bring herself to care how much her softened voice might have revealed.

"No, I understand you need to deal with Shawn—do try your best to keep him from doing anything stupid…_er_. God only knows what Trout might do if Shawn tries any of his usual stunts. Don't worry, I'll find Carlton. Make sure he's okay. Or as okay as he can be under the circumstances."

She froze, hand on her car's door as O'Hara spoke again. "I know, Juliet… believe me, I _know_. Don't worry—I'll take care of him."

As the line went dead, she glanced back over her shoulder in the direction of Lucinda's grave and sighed.

"If he'll let me."


	9. YEAR SEVEN (Later that same day)

**YEAR SEVEN (Later that same day, in fact….)  
**_**2013**_**  
**

**AN: **Short, but hopefully sweet.

* * *

Logic would dictate she should be far more nervous. After all, _she_ was the one who'd pulled back, who'd retreated at every conceivable opportunity, who'd _hid_. But the time for all of that was over. The time for nerves was over. She was where she wanted to be.

Where she needed to be. No questions. No doubts.

Okay, so she was a _little_ nervous, standing on his threshold, looking up into his shuttered blue gaze. He'd showered and changed, exchanging the ashes-dusted suit for flannel pajama pants and a worn t-shirt, a lock of still-damp hair falling onto his forehead. Despite the many off-hours they'd spent together in the past few months, this was nevertheless the most accessible she'd ever seen him.

And the most remote.

Yet behind the stillness at which he was so adept she could sense a storm of emotion and tension—coupled perhaps with faint surprise at her presence on his doorstep. Karen watched as he waged war within himself—logic and emotion, practicality and desire, pessimism and… hope. She stood very still, barely breathing, and prayed that emotion and desire—that _hope—_would win out.

She knew the man, though—probably better than anyone else—and knew the odds of that happening were…

Okay, hell—_now_ she was nervous.

_Please, Carlton. Please, please, please…_

_I'm sorry. _

_I'm so sorry._

His head jerked up slightly, almost as if he'd heard her silent pleas.

"Where's Iris?" he asked abruptly.

"Playdate," she answered quietly.

Iris had been thrilled to see her mother in the pickup line instead of her regular babysitter, but after the initial surprise had subsided and the questions of _Why? _and _Every day, really?_ answered, the Very Important Business of being eight had resumed, Iris informing Karen that she had a scheduled playdate with Marley. A check of her phone's calendar and a quick phone call to Marley's mother had verified that yes, the playdate was still on, for which Karen was almost shamefully grateful. As happy as she was to pick her daughter up from school and see her and ask about her day and know she would have the freedom to do this thing every single day for the foreseeable future, like so many other parents, truth was, the business of being a woman was poking at _her_.

She needed time. Time to… think. To come to grips with everything that had transpired today. Everything that had transpired in the past few months. She needed to confide in Lucinda what an unimaginable _idiot_ she'd been.

And after O'Hara's phone call, she desperately needed to see Carlton.

He remained utterly still, staring down at her, eyes wide and turned a cool silvery-blue that made her shiver in spite of her resolve. He was so very angry. _And rightfully so_, she reminded herself.

"How long?" His voice was flat, betraying no emotion.

Other than the question itself.

The fact he was asking at all revealed so much, giving her the courage to quietly say, "Actually… it's a sleepover."

He remained silent a moment longer, as if weighing her words—attempting to determine meaning and intent.

Mouth thinning into an even firmer line, he nodded and stepped aside, opening the door wider and leaving a clear path into the foyer—and beyond. Before she could fully step past the threshold, however, he stopped her with a glance.

"Don't come in unless you intend to stay."

Karen could tell he meant for his statement to emerge as flat and emotionless as his earlier questions, but like the questions themselves, the fact he was even allowing himself to make such a declaration revealed so much. More, she suspected, than he even realized. Because if he had, he'd have just as soon duct taped his own mouth shut.

Holding his gaze, she took a deliberate step across the threshold. Then another. And another. She continued taking slow, measured steps through the foyer and on into his living room, her gaze raking over the clear plastic-shrouded uniforms draped over the back of the armchair.

Good Lord, that couldn't possibly mean…

Oh, hell, of _course_ it did.

Son of a bitch. Son of an ever-loving—

_Later_. _You can rail about Trout later. _

Rounding the coffee table, she slowly lowered herself to the sofa, taking deep breaths to calm her frayed nerves.

Yeah, fat chance of _that_ happening.

Behind her, the sound of the door closing was followed by the unmistakable _shnick_ of the lock. She smiled faintly as two more locks clicked into place, followed by a series of beeps as he set the alarm. As the beeps gave way to silence her smile faded and she put a hand to her stomach, waiting for whatever might come next—awkward silence, angry berating... maybe just a bottle of Jack, two glasses, and cold clipped conversation.

_He said you shouldn't come in unless you intend to stay._

_He set the alarm._

With those two thoughts swirling around in her brain along with a host of others darting about too fast for her to pin down and identify, she toed off her shoes, prepared for anything Carlton Lassiter might throw at her. Which was why it caught her completely by surprise when he paused a step shy of where she sat on the sofa and looked at her for a long, charged moment, the shutters falling away and leaving his eyes a painfully vulnerable blue that left her breathless. She barely had opportunity to attempt a full breath before he lowered himself to his knees and dropped his head to her lap, closing his eyes with a weary sigh.

"_Oh_," she breathed, barely able to speak around the lump in her throat. "Oh... _Carlton_."

She put a gentle hand to his head and began to stroke, her heart skipping a beat at the feel of his hands closing almost painfully on her hips. How long they remained like that, she had no idea—she merely sat there, stroking his salt-and-pepper hair, almost impossibly soft without whatever he used to keep it tamed throughout the course of any given day. As she twisted her fingers through the thick, wavy strands, she made an idle mental note that from now on, whenever they were like this—alone together—she didn't want anything in his hair. Come to think of it, she didn't want the suits and ties, or the clean-shaven countenance that comprised the various pieces of the image with which he protected himself. She wanted none of it. She wanted _this_ Carlton.

Her Carlton.

Her thumb traced the dusky arcs of his lashes and the shadows beneath; her fingertips walked lightly across the faint line of freckles dotting his cheekbones and skimmed along the close-cropped hair at the nape of his neck before gradually increasing the pressure to rub at the tension holding the muscles hostage.

Slowly, the tension ebbed away, his punishing grip on her hips relaxing, though his hands remained firmly anchored there.

As she continued stroking his hair, her other hand moved to his shoulder, her palm absorbing the heat of his skin through the thin cotton of his shirt before shifting to his cheek, new sensations assailing her—the feel of his late-afternoon stubble, his breath, warm and damp, his mouth, as surprisingly soft as his hair, pressing against the inside of her wrist with the infinite gentleness of a butterfly's wings.

Her stomach clenched. He'd been _so_ alone. That tender gesture said more than any words could—conveyed how much he didn't _want_ to be alone.

Conveyed how much he wanted her.

"Me, too," she whispered, her hand maintaining its hypnotic rhythm through his hair. She swallowed hard as she felt him sigh yet again, his body relaxing further still so that his chest rested fully against her legs. And in that moment, her entire world narrowed down to nothing more than the feel of this man in her arms.

Right now, that was all her world needed to be.


	10. YEAR SEVEN (So not done yet)

**YEAR SEVEN (You didn't think we were done, did you?)  
**_**2013**_**  
**

**AN: **Here there be slight _**M**_ delicate readers.

* * *

Carlton lay propped on an elbow, watching Karen sleep and occasionally granting himself permission to touch—to lightly trace the perfect arches of her brows, the full, relaxed curve of her mouth, the delicate jut of her collarbones where the collar of her shirt fell open. It was the latter that gave him pause. Sure, Karen was a naturally slender woman, but he didn't recall her collarbones or even the proud, strong lines of her jaw or cheekbones ever being quite so prominent before.

She'd lost weight. Weight she really didn't need to lose, he fretted, as he lightly stroked her forearm down to her wrist, circling it between thumb and forefinger with too much room to spare—even taking the length of his own fingers into account. She'd done a good job of masking it on the job—her well-cut suits in dark colors giving the illusion of substance—but she hadn't fooled him. With each day her cheeks had hollowed further and the elegant column of her neck had taken on a new fragility and he had grown increasingly furious.

With Richard, because by God, didn't the man see that the mother of his child—the woman he allegedly wanted to reestablish a life with—was literally wasting away?

With Karen, because by God, regardless of what her choice was, did it matter if cost her health? And if the cost was her health, was it really worth it? Was it the right choice?

Furious, above all, at himself, because by God, he should have fought for them. For _her_.

She stirred, as if in response to his internal turmoil and he stilled immediately. She needed to rest—something else that had become painfully evident as the weeks had passed and the shadows beneath her eyes had deepened. As with her weight loss, she'd done an admirable job hiding the dark circles with makeup and sunglasses. Once upon a time he would never have noticed. Or cared… much. But God, it was Karen—how could he not notice?

More importantly, how could he not care? It was _Karen_.

Hell yeah, he'd been angry—he may have known there was no way they'd be the quote/unquote _friends _with which she'd tried to appease him, both of them knowing it the whole time for utter BS—but there was no way he wasn't going to look out for her.

_Someone_ had to, especially since she resolutely refused to do it herself.

Carlton understood, especially after all the therapy, that he maybe took the caretaker role a little too seriously, but what else was he supposed to do? Where women were concerned, it was what he knew. What he'd grown up doing.

The primary difference here was, unlike Lulu and his mother and Victoria and even Marlowe, Karen hadn't ever expected it of him.

Which was maybe why it made it all the more important.

She stirred again, the motion turning her into him and causing her shirt to ride up, exposing a sliver of skin.

Crap. He really shouldn't—he really, really shouldn't. He knew that. And hadn't he just been berating himself over how much she needed her rest? But she was in his arms, head finding a perfect niche against his shoulder, her breathing steady and warm against his neck, and dammit, he was only human and she was so very alive and with him.

By choice.

Very carefully, and cursing himself for weakness the entire time, he placed his hand on her waist, his palm covering the exposed skin while his fingers came to rest on the hem of her shirt. An instant later, more skin met his touch as she stretched slightly, her breasts pressing into his side with a delicious pressure that made his breath catch.

"You feel nice," she mumbled, her lips brushing his neck.

"I'm sorry." He tried to draw back but found himself held firmly in place by her arm snaking around his waist and lower down, her foot hooking over his ankle.

She gazed up at him, dark eyes glowing in the early evening light bathing the room. "Generally 'nice' doesn't mean 'stop.'"

He shook his head. "I didn't mean to wake you up." Once again he tried to pull away and once again, found himself firmly held in place.

"And I didn't mean to fall asleep."

Her voice was wry, which perversely brought his protective instincts surging to the surface once again.

"You've had a hell of a day—you needed the rest."

In response, she looked around the room, intent and narrow-eyed, assessing her surroundings. As her gaze returned to his face, she appeared to study him as intently—assessing him. Already knowing it for a lost cause, he nevertheless tried for nonchalant as he repeated, "You needed your rest."

After a long, sinuous stretch that brought her body even more fully in contact with his and left Carlton's vision slightly blurred, Karen relaxed, settling herself more comfortably—more… intimately against him. Good God, for as little space as they were taking up they could have easily stayed on his sofa, but the bed had seemed to make so much more sense.

In theory.

Nice sheets—blankets, even. Fluffy comforter. Air that was gently scented with some artsy-fartsy glass jar oil diffuser thingie to which Marlowe had introduced him and that he had found he liked, though he pooh-poohed it at the time. After his bride-to-be's ignominious departure he'd dumped the original diffuser thingie as was right and proper only to find himself, weeks later, replacing it. Different shape to the jar and definitely a different scent—no sultry jasmine or gardenia, no sir. Far too frilly and girly. He'd instead opted for a cleaner cedar. Strong. Masculine. Softened just a bit with a smoky undertone of amber because hell, it was his bedroom and making it more relaxing and inviting and less in-your-face was perfectly acceptable, dammit.

The day after his purchase of said diffuser thingie he'd caught a whiff of Karen's perfume.

A soft feminine vanilla—with a smoky undertone of… amber.

Couldn't even bring himself to be embarrassed. He was too happy to have something of her close by. Especially after their kiss and their relationship's subsequent screeching halt.

Which probably made him a masochist of some stupidly high order, but then again, what else was new?

But he digressed. Gently scented air, yes. Guaranteed relaxation. And his primary reason for carrying her to his bed with no—or at least, not many—ulterior motives: far more room for her to stretch out.

Yes.

In theory.

The reality had had her refusing to let him go far, even in sleep, stirring restlessly when he tried to ease back after having gently placed her on the bed. In an effort to make certain she remained asleep, he'd perched on the edge of the mattress, stroking her hair until she appeared to settle down. But when he'd tried once again to slip away, her brows had drawn together, one hand flailing until it latched onto his arm. Helpless, Carlton had heeded her silent demands and eased himself down alongside her. Only then had she settled fully, her breathing evening out into a steady, hypnotic rhythm that had drawn him under for a short sleep of his own. But the feel of her in his arms , his instinct to keep watch and protect, had served to keep him on the razor's edge of awareness until he finally found himself propped on an elbow and studying her lovely features in a rare state of repose.

So, _so_ pretty.

His breath caught again as Karen slipped the hand resting on his back beneath the hem of his t-shirt.

"You kind of had a hell of a day, too," she said softly, her fingers rubbing slow, methodical circles on his skin that sent little electrical charges skittering along his spine. In spite of the overload of sensation, he nevertheless managed a decent approximation of a dismissive snort. He thought.

"I didn't lose my job."

She was silent, not that it mattered. Because damn her, that steady brown gaze said it all. And in the most perfect way possible.

No pity. Not a drop of sympathy from which he would naturally recoil. Just… empathy. Understanding. And deep within the dark depths, an undeniable spark of anger. Unmistakable if only because if there was anything with which he was intimately familiar, it was Karen Vick's Anger—quiet, deadly, and oh, so effective.

He couldn't help but smile, thinking that Harris Trout had _no_ idea who he was messing with.

Still, though—she needed to save her anger. It was wasted on his behalf.

"It's not the same, Karen."

"The hell it's not," she all but growled, her nails digging into his skin and causing the electrical charges to wind around from his spine to his gut and points south. Lord, there had to be something twisted about him at some fundamental level that a fierce, angry Karen turned him on to such an unbearable degree.

"It's not." When her mouth firmed into the stubborn, you-will-_not_-argue-with-me-Carlton-Lassiter line he knew so well, he added, "We can talk about it later."

The fingers of one hand toyed with her hair while the other remained still on her waist, despite an intense desire to move, to soothe, to accept the invitation she offered with the subtle arching of her body against his and the gentle motion of her foot against his ankle. Coupled with the way the hand on his back had relaxed resumed tracing lazy circles, it was a miracle he hadn't dissolved into a puddle of fried synapses and hormones. But he held still, knowing once he started, there would be no stopping and he needed to be sure.

"Can we?"

Carlton looked down into her face, easily reading her unspoken question of would there actually be a later? But he'd warned her—if she was coming into his home, it had best be with the forethought and knowledge she wasn't leaving any time soon.

Guess she needed to be sure too.

"We can," he assured her, finally allowing the hand on her waist to move, sliding over her stomach and smoothly undoing the lowest button.. "We can talk about anything." He allowed himself a brief caress of the smooth skin his action had revealed. "We can talk about everything."

"We do have to talk though, Carlton," she said somewhat breathlessly as her hand twitched against his back and the motion of her foot turned jerky and irregular, as if she'd lost momentary control over her muscles, which sent Carlton's alpha male tendencies into hyperdrive.

He undid another button. "Yes, we do." Then another. "And we will."

He continued slipping buttons free while gently pushing her to her back to allow him greater access. He studied the play of his hand against the smooth as silk skin of her abdomen, marked with a handful of faint, almost imperceptible scars that gave him the briefest of pauses until he realized what must have caused them. Lowering his head, he pressed reverent kisses to the few visible above the waistband of her slacks, knowing there were likely more and planning in his head exactly how he would pay homage to them. Repeatedly. Because, _damn_.

With a final kiss, his gut clenching at the subtle fluttering of her muscles beneath his lips, he pushed himself up. Face to face, his hands propped on the mattress either side of her head, his gaze ranged up her body: the smooth, flat abdomen, the gentle slopes of her breasts encased in white satin and lace that was surprisingly erotic despite the innocent shade. The long column of her neck, her pulse visibly beating at the base, her strong stubborn jaw and the delicate line of her nose. Her silky, honey blonde hair tumbled across his pillow, eyes wide and turned even darker with an intoxicating combination of stunned anticipation and sultry knowing, skin flushed a deep rose, and that lovely, sensual wide mouth parted—as if in anticipation.

As he watched, the tip of her tongue emerged, whether by accident or design he neither knew nor cared—all he knew was that it dragged across her lower lip in a slow, devastating caress, leaving behind a damp sheen that he longed to taste. That he knew he would be tasting.

Soon.

Very, _very_ soon.

But he had to make one thing exceedingly clear to her.

"We _will_ talk, Karen," he repeated. Slowly, he lowered his hips, adjusting as she parted her thighs and allowed him room to lower himself further. He ground himself against her, relishing how perfectly her body cradled his and how the friction of their clothes between them somehow added to the charged eroticism of the moment, acting as an aphrodisiac of sorts. Her body warmed beneath his, the arousal rolling off her in waves as he circled his hips, letting her feel how hard he was for her—how much he wanted her.

She shifted beneath him, bending one leg to allow him more room between her thighs, her hands curling into his shoulders as she sighed. A sound that conveyed that she was ready for whatever he'd say next.

"But right now, talking's the last thing I want to do."

One brow rose in challenge as the corner of her mouth curved up in a smile that was so sultry and so inviting—so damned sure she was ready for whatever he'd say next.

But her voice remained deceptively mild as she drawled, "Oh?"

A smile of his own crossed his face as he leaned down, slowly enough for him to catch the slight shift in her expression—the surprise and the sudden uncertainty that maybe, just maybe, no matter what the hell gossip she might have heard, she wasn't ready. With another purposeful grind—increasing the pressure until he heard her gasp and felt her shudder lightly beneath him—he brought his face alongside hers and with his lips brushing her ear whispered exactly what he wanted to do. In the bluntest, most explicit language in his arsenal.

And gathered her close as she shuddered and fell apart beneath him.

Oh yeah, they'd talk.

But given the promise in this beginning, it wouldn't be for a long while yet.

A _very_ long while.


	11. YEAR SEVEN (Really, just the beginning)

**YEAR SEVEN (In some ways, just begun…)  
****2013**

Or, dear readers, just an excuse for shameless **lovesmut.** This is **M**in case the **lovesmut** didn't make it clear enough.

* * *

_Ursula Gibbs was an idiot._

The thought appeared in Karen's mind, every bit as clear and sharp as if it had been worked in neon, blinking mockingly as she clutched Carlton's shoulders and gasped for air, trying to recover from the sudden and extremely intense orgasm she'd just experienced.

If that's what the man could accomplish with the two of them entirely clothed and only the barest hint of skin-to-skin contact?

Holy crap.

And yeah. Ursula Gibbs. Idiot.

Along with Victoria Parker. And Marlowe Viccellio and even, by God, Juliet O'Hara.

Any woman who'd had opportunity to have Carlton Lassiter in her life and who had somehow let him go, had to qualify as a Grade-A, top-of-the-line, idiot.

Which meant she, Karen Dunlap Vick, should be perched pretty high atop that list.

Perhaps on its peak.

She always had been an overachiever.

Good thing, too, because she would now turn the same drive and determination that had made her a kickass cop to making certain to never let this man go. Ever.

And to satisfying his every need.

Even those of which he wasn't even aware.

Starting right this damned minute.

Willing her muscles into cooperating, she tightened her thighs around his waist and with a move straight out of the Academy handbook, flipped him over onto his back.

Not that he resisted.

No, he just merely lay back against the pillows, propped his arms beneath his head, and _smiled_, the bastard. A variation of the smile he'd flashed an instant before he'd sent her completely over the edge, after having somehow built her up to a fever pitch from seemingly innocuous caresses.

Holy crap would she have been in all sorts of unimaginable trouble if after tonight they were forced to face each other every day at work. Lately, it had taken most her formidable self-control to simply deal with the man's _presence_. Forcing herself to hold steady under those intense blue looks that managed to be inscrutable yet made it perfectly clear what—_who_—he wanted. To have intimate, firsthand knowledge what he could do with a mere touch or a whispered word, delivered in that low, husky voice that was just shy of a growl? Visits to the coffee bar would need to be faced with the same sort of fortitude as a S.W.A.T. raid and it was a damned good bet her beloved glass fish wouldn't survive their first private conference in her office.

On the one hand, they _did_ have six months to get those early, heady, can't-keep-our-hands-off-each-other relationship impulses under control. However, as he lay back and _smiled_, the bastard—that surprisingly wolfish, almost-feral smile—coupled with the predatory gleam deepening his eyes to a smoky, slumberous blue that spoke to long, _long_ nights, she had a sinking, exhilarating, giddy, heart-racing feeling that six months might not be enough to get those impulses under control.

Come to think of it, _why_ would she want to?

Without a word, she leaned forward, brushing her silk-clad breasts from his abdomen to his chest, skimming his t-shirt up the same path with her hands. His sharp intake of breath and the speed with which he leveraged himself up just far enough to yank the shirt over his head and toss it aside were her reward and the first real sign since his whispered promise of what he wanted to do to her that he was just as affected as she. The next sign came almost immediately as he lay back again, ostensibly as relaxed as before, but Karen could sense a hint of strain around the edges of his smile and certainly, what she _felt_ as she circled her pelvis over his belied any illusion of _relaxed_.

It was her turn to smile as she leaned forward again and slowly, torturously dragged her breasts from his abdomen to his chest once more, pausing only when she reached his collarbones and a most intriguing mole. With a glance up at his increasingly tense features, she lowered her head and gently skimmed her lips across the irregular dark mark, once, twice, then a third time, sucking gently. Her hands, which had been resting on his sides, stroked his stomach, exploring the warm skin there before moving up to his chest. They both sighed as her fingertips encountered coarse hair and the hard pebbled surface of his nipples. Dragging her nose down the center of his chest, she breathed in the warm, male smell of him and savored the faint tremors that every caress seemed to provoke. Tremors that turned to a sudden jerk accompanied by a sharp hiss as her teeth gently sank into one nipple.

Her tongue soothed while her fingernails scored across the other nipple, provoking a groan and a surge of his hips up into hers though he kept his arms resolutely behind his head—acknowledging it was her turn.

Karen moved from side to side, using teeth and fingers and tongue and breath to arouse and soothe and arouse some more—a most delicious activity she kept up for endless moments, relishing his increasingly impatient groans and the restless, jerky motions of his pelvis against hers.

God but he smelled good and tasted better. Karen wanted nothing more than to explore him all over, with hands and mouth—wanted to spend the next minutes and hours and days just looking her fill and talking and touching without reservation. The knowledge that she _could_—

She sighed again and lay her cheek flush to his chest. His heartbeat was fast and strong—proof of how very alive and real he was. It wasn't until she eased back that her gaze fell on a small, pink knot of scar, hovering not far above that strong, able heart.

She traced it with wondering fingers, shuddering slightly as she recalled the sight of him slumped over a table, a frightening expanse of red marring the once pristine blue of his dress shirt. Why Spencer had ever thought that was an appropriate scene to include, she would never know. Karen knew she would never ask him, because any questions she might pose would likely end with her own service weapon aimed at his kneecaps.

Unbidden, another scene from the idiot's "masterpiece" flashed in her mind, prompting her to slide down his legs, echoing his own frustrated groan as she left the warm comfortable cradle of his pelvis. But she had to see.

Kneeling by his feet—long, narrow, and slightly ticklish as she discovered after running an experimental fingertip along one sole—she pushed up the right leg of his flannel pants, exposing another pink-tinged scar, circling the skin above his ankle like a jagged shackle. She placed her hand over the scar, hiding it from sight although she could clearly feel the bumps and indentations that marked where the bear trap had torn through skin and muscle, down almost to the bone.

"It doesn't hurt. Not anymore."

She lifted her head to meet his gaze, half-lidded and watchful, passion still exceedingly evident, but tempered somewhat with the calm on which she'd long relied.

"I hate that it did." More words remained trapped in her throat—so many things that she wanted to say, but couldn't. Rather, she wouldn't.

It was part of the job. They both knew it. And as ridiculous and absurd as the circumstances that had brought him into that godforsaken forest were, she knew he'd do it all over again—bear trap, blood loss, hypothermia, gunshot, Spencer—because it meant they had captured some extremely bad people and gained valuable leads that had allowed them to bring down a vicious crime syndicate.

Hell yeah, he'd do it again. And she couldn't stop him. Rather, she wouldn't.

All she could do was hold her breath and hope like hell he came home safe to her. All she could do was give him reason to survive and come home safe to her.

Moving her hand, she studied the scar for another moment before lowering her head and pressing a series of soft, gentle kisses across the raised, angry surface. Above her head, she heard his sharp intake of breath an instant before she felt him shift, his hand coming to rest on her head. As his long fingers gently threaded through her hair, she _knew_—this was something no one had done for him before. Not simply to this scar, but to any of them.

No surprise, really—he was so intensely contained and prone to downplaying evidence of any sort of weakness.

But he wasn't weak. Carlton Lassiter was the strongest man she knew.

After one final kiss, she straightened, and reached for the waistband of his pants. To her surprise, it was the only waistband she encountered as she slowly drew it down his lean hips.

"I wouldn't have taken you for commando," she murmured as she tossed the pants aside and sat back on her heels to study him anew.

"At home, I like being relaxed." He smiled slightly and added, "Unencumbered."

As if to prove his point, he leaned back into the pillows, one long leg stretched out, the other bent slightly, arms once more behind his head as he smiled, utterly comfortable and perfectly, utterly, deliciously… _unencumbered_.

All of a sudden the persona he'd presented nearly every working day she'd known him—tense, restrained, radiating impatience and a barely suppressed energy—made so much more sense. That wasn't the real Carlton.

This. This leanly-muscled, dark-haired, blue-eyed specimen—glorious in the comfort and relaxation he exuded within the confines of his private space and his own skin—_this_ was the real Carlton.

Karen felt her mouth go dry as heat surged straight between her thighs. It was entirely possible this man could make her climax without even touching her.

Which brought her right back to all other women—idiots.

Thank _God_.

All of a sudden her own clothes felt itchy and chafing and restrictive and she couldn't get them off fast enough. Nude and flushed under his openly appreciative stare she straddled his legs down by his knees. This position gave her room to stroke his thighs, her fingertips following the shallow indentations of his muscles to his hips, her thumbs ghosting in the hollows leading to where he was warmest and most eager, his erection straining toward her, as if beckoning. She smiled and with another quick glance up to where he watched, still relaxed, yet with a telltale flush rising from the fair skin of his chest and up over his face, leaned down and brushed her cheek against smooth, delicious hardness, down, until she met coarse hair. She rested there for a moment, breathing him in and enjoying the feel of the impatient jerks and throbs he was helpless to prevent, before turning her head slightly and reversing direction, her lips skimming against him in a light, open-mouthed kiss, up… up… until she was able to gently close her mouth over him.

"_Karen_—"

Once again he throbbed and jerked, this time within her mouth as his hips rose off the mattress, impatience clearly starting to get the better of him. Karen realized she had to make a decision—would she continue with deliberate intent, bringing him to the climax he clearly needed, or would she… play?

He surged once more within her mouth and the desire to own him in this way very nearly overwhelmed her—he was so warm and tasted so good—but she also wanted to explore the rest of the playground that was Carlton's body. Easing back, she blew a stream of cool air over the dampness she'd left behind, relishing the low, heartfelt groan that echoed in the otherwise quiet of the room.

Sitting back once more on her heels, she surveyed what lay before her—everything she knew and everything she was in the process of discovering and all of it so appealing on so many levels.

"God, but you are a lovely, lovely man." She placed her hand on one muscled thigh and slowly ran it up his torso, unfolding herself as she went until she lay flush over his body. Only then did she feel him shift, his arms wrapping around her and holding her close. Nose buried in the hollow where neck and shoulder met, she breathed him in once again, knowing she'd never get tired of the smell of clean skin combined with faint overtones of whisky—another element of the at-home Carlton.

"Hey," she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Tremors ran through his arms as he tightened them around her before lowering his hands to her hips, urging her to sit far enough up for their gazes to meet.

He looked at her, smiling faintly, his gaze the warm blue of a tropical sea. "I love you, too."

She smiled and felt a delicious thrill at hearing the words she'd felt so keenly. "You wouldn't have ever let me cross the threshold if you didn't."

One hand rose to her cheek, the backs of his fingers ghosting along the skin in a delicate caress. "You wouldn't have ever crossed the threshold if you didn't."

Both hands skimmed her back from shoulders to hips where he urged her further up his body. Karen felt her breath hitch, instinctively understanding what he wanted, but… like this? So… exposed?

He shifted beneath her, maneuvering into a semi-reclined position that allowed him a full view of _everything_. Honestly, nothing he wouldn't be seeing regardless, but... but...

"Carlton, please let me—"

"No." Hands firm on her waist, he halted her efforts to ease to his side, to allow her to lie down, leave herself open for him. Why this felt so different, she didn't know, it just did. Without the security of a bed or a chair beneath her, offering support, a place for her hands to gain traction, in this position, on her knees, poised above him, she had nothing to protect her from freefalling. She was completely and utterly exposed in a way she'd never before experienced.

"Don't you understand just how beautiful you are?"

One hand lowered to cup her ass while the other moved between her thighs, one long, graceful finger drawing a line down through where she was hottest and needed him most. A violent shudder wracked her body, pitching her forward. Hands flailing, she managed to grab the headboard just in time as his mouth replaced his hand, his tongue following the same trail as his finger, back and forth, over and over, drawing gasps and garbled cries from her as she gripped the headboard harder and harder, her nails digging into the wood. One climax, then a second, even more intense, shot through her as her thighs quivered and her knees burned from the effort of keeping herself upright, and it seemed impossible that she could keep this up—not with what he was doing to her—and she was desperate to beg him to let her down, to bring this to an end, even as dear _God_ desperate she was for it to never end. Then she glanced down and looked—truly _looked_—gazing in wonderment at the sight of his dark head below her, his hands spread across her thighs, the pale skin reddened from his punishing grip and the relentless rasp of his stubble—at his lashes dark against skin damp with a fine sheen of sweat as he applied himself to a task he was so clearly relishing.

Then his eyes opened, his gaze so full of lust and love, she felt herself toppling over into yet another intense orgasm even before he settled his mouth directly over where she was most sensitive, circling and sucking and finally biting, ever so gently.

This time when she fell, he let her go, though he followed her down, adjusting his body but never letting up on his relentless ministrations—it was as if he was simultaneously rewarding and punishing, letting her know she was his; admonishing that she'd made them wait entirely too long for… for…

"_Carlton—_" Her hands sank into his hair, holding tight, and honest-to-God, she wasn't certain if she was trying to pull him away or hold him closer. Her heart pounded like it was trying to burst out of her chest and she couldn't draw a full breath and every muscle she owned quivered in satiation and protest and a deep, intense desire for _more_, God, please, _more_.

Head spinning, she pushed him off of her and somehow managed to maneuver him back into the half-reclined position in which they'd begun. Forcing her wobbly muscles to cooperate, she rose to her knees and straddled him again. Without hesitation, she reached between them and guided him inside her, her groan matching his in intensity as she lowered herself and felt him slide deep within her body. Forehead resting against his, she clutched his sweat-slicked shoulders and leaned in to kiss him deeply as she slowly rolled her hips, rising only far enough to allow her to draw him even deeper, hold him even more closely within her. Her fatigued muscles wouldn't let her keep this up indefinitely, however, and finally, she just sank down fully, groaning anew as he hit new places deep within, setting off a fresh series of tremors building up to what promised to be yet another mind-blowing orgasm when she might have thought she was completely tapped out.

Clearly, she wasn't. Clearly, by the way his arms tightened around her and he surged up into her, finding yet another untouched spot that sent lights streaking past her vision, he knew damn well she wasn't. But there was no way she could do this by herself or even mostly by herself. She needed him to finish this.

Unfolding her legs, she wrapped them around his waist and lowered her head to his shoulder with a shuddering sigh.

"Please," she whispered, and that was all it took. In one move he rolled them over, giving her the security of the bed beneath and his body above, leaving her feeling cocooned and cherished and safe and above all, desired, as he rose, just far enough to place a gentle kiss to her nose.

"I love you," he said in a low, husky tone that draped itself around her body in yet another layer of comfort and desire. "I love how you feel around me and I love how your body responds to mine and I'm going to love learning all the different ways we fit together."

If Carlton's explicit language earlier had served to send her over the edge, this—these sweetly erotic words—had the effect of keeping her teetering on the precipice, anticipation growing, especially as he lowered his head and kissed her mouth, then her neck, then the notch between her collarbones. His hair tickled the underside of her jaw as his mouth trailed along her cleavage, his tongue capturing a trickling bead of sweat. An instant later, his mouth closed over one nipple as he began moving in slow, inexorable thrusts—strong pulls countering each equally strong push, while his hand found the other breast, his thumb flicking the hard peak in the same, steady rhythm, as if they had all day to do this.

It was as calming as a lullaby and as intoxicating as the finest wine, leaving Karen dizzy and breathless, yet somehow imbuing her with a fresh burst of energy, her body rising to meet his, her hands braced on his chest as her thumbs played with his nipples in the same, devastating rhythm as the one in which he pushed into her, over and over. At one point, he held himself very still above her and looked down a wild, desperate gleam turning his eyes a translucent silver blue, the black of his pupils wide and so dark, she imagined she could see herself reflected in them.

She loved what she saw—her hair messy and sweat damp, her skin, reddened and marked by him, her mouth, crying his name as with a final hard thrust he wrenched one last orgasm from her. She loved what she felt as she climaxed around him, her muscles holding tight and tighter still as felt him finally allow himself his own release, his body shuddering and quaking as he lost himself in her.

And much later, as she lay propped on an elbow and watched him sleep, his head nestled against her chest, an arm and a leg draped over her, making certain even in sleep that she stayed close, she just… _loved_.


	12. YEAR EIGHT

**YEAR EIGHT  
**_**2014**_**  
**

* * *

"I know about the two of you, you know."

Carlton blinked, looked from the sandwich he held, to Trout, hovering like a beady-eyed vulture behind the bench on which he was taking his lunch this fine February day, back to his sandwich and finally, back to Trout.

"I'll admit, it's a short-lived relationship, but I, at least, am fully committed to it." He calmly took a bite, turning away from Trout's sour countenance, lest it cause his rare roast beef and Swiss on toasted sourdough to spoil from sheer malevolence.

"Ha, ha—such a funny guy, by which of course, I mean not at all."

"A state with which you're intimately familiar," Carlton muttered around a mouthful of sandwich.

"What?"

Carlton swallowed, smiled, and offered a guileless, "Nothing." By which of course, he meant, _I know you heard me just fine, you scum-sucking waste of protoplasm_.

An ominous, inexorable ticking broke through the sounds of birds chirping and the muffled laughter of kids playing at a distance. From the corner of his eye, Carlton spied the hated timer coming to rest beside him on the bench an instant before Trout settled himself on its other side. Without a word, Carlton wrapped the sandwich's remains, tucked it back into the bag, and retrieved his root beer. He was halfway across the plaza before Trout caught up to him.

"Stop it right there, Lassiter—you know damned well you can't walk away from your superior officer."

Without breaking stride, Carlton called over his shoulder, "You're right, I can't. But as of this exact moment, I'm not on the clock. Which makes me a _private_ citizen, in a _public_ park, _trying_ to enjoy his lunch."

A statement that once upon a time would have been unheard of, coming from him.

Once upon a time he would've insisted he was a cop, 24/7, blood and bone and the very air he breathed, but that was once upon a time.

Before Karen and the life he led away from being a cop—a life he would never have dared imagine—or imagined he would have even wanted at all. Now though, he couldn't imagine his life any other way.

"_Lassiter_—"

At Trout's braying command, Carlton glanced longingly at the graceful stucco and tile façade of Our Lady of Sorrows, its carillon tower rising from the park's edge as if standing sentry. Judging by the way Trout was huffing and puffing behind him, no way he could catch up before Carlton crossed onto consecrated ground. And if by some chance he did, the probability he would start smoking and howling in terror seemed fairly high.

Tempting as it was to see if his theory held water—_speaking of which, don't forget to stop by Our Lady before going back on the clock to pick up a vial or two of the holy stuff to keep on hand_—Carlton knew he stood a better chance of finishing his lunch in peace if he actually granted the pompous blowhard his desired audience.

Stifling the impulse to brandish his St. Raphael medal—a Christmas gift from Karen—and declare, _Unclean!_, Carlton sighed and turned to face his personal vision of hell. He'd long accepted if Hell had a face it would be pudgy with a foul stench of narcissistic self-entitlement, but if anyone had told him six months earlier that nary a pineapple smoothie or jerk chicken nacho would be involved, he would have laughed. And mocked.

Mostly mocked.

"What?"

He might be giving the son of a bitch time, but no one said he had to be polite about it. Well, Karen might suggest—_strongly_—that he would get further being a bit more politic and perhaps even mustering a smile, but he was fairly certain that would only be if he was dealing with someone normal and not the Spawn of Satan.

Now that they stood face-to-face, Trout made a visible effort to stifle his gasping, wheezing slightly and growing even more red-faced than usual in the process. Carlton sighed, thinking that with any luck, the bastard might stroke out and he could return to his lunch in peace.

_Carlton._

_What?_

_You're right next to the church—don't you think that's skirting the edges of courting bad luck?_

_I skirt the edges of courting bad luck every day I come to work for this miserable ass—_

_Carlton…_

_Fine._

He wasn't sure when the internal voice had taken on the precise cadence and timbre of Karen's, but he wouldn't argue—much. Yes, it had a way of chiding him to be far more reasonable than he was absolutely comfortable with, but if the tradeoff was having her voice wrapped around him even when they weren't together? _That_, he wouldn't give up for anything.

"Watch the tone, there, Bub," Trout finally managed to spit out. "And drinking on the job?" he added with a watery blue glare at the bottle Carlton held. "That's good for a write up. That'll speed your path toward becoming a private citizen fulltime."

_Bub_? It was so stupid, Carlton couldn't even bring himself to bristle.

God, but Karen had been a hell of an influence on him.

"Root beer," he responded with only a slight edge as he held up the plain brown glass bottle, lacking a label as the brand had ever since Carlton could remember. That had been an integral part of the joy of a frosty cold root beer as a kid—pretending it was a real beer, much like Hank had drunk. Many a Saturday night they'd sat around a campfire after a day of "riding the range," a cooler between them from which they would each fish their drink of choice while Hank spun wild tales of shootouts and ghost riders.

These days, it was him introducing Iris to the joys of horseback riding and campfires and frosty cold root beers—a new and wholly unexpected joy for him. Allowing himself the occasional root beer during lunch of a workday was a way for him to recapture a bit of the carefree feeling he so enjoyed during the weekends.

"Ha, ha—again with the funny that's so not." Trout leaned forward, a sneer on his pasty face that faded as he read the raised lettering on the old-fashioned bottle. "Oh, well…then—" He straightened and adjusted his tie, his usual pompous air barely dented. "Make sure you recycle that when you're done. There's a fine if you don't."

Carlton barely stopped his eyes from rolling straight out of his head, heeding Karen's steely, _Carlton Lassiter, get yourself under control_. He did, however, glance pointedly down at his watch because by God, he _was_ on his own time and he was only willing to sacrifice so much of it.

"In a hurry?"

"If you want me to get back to work on time, yes."

Trout's eyes narrowed to icy blue slits. "Ah, there's the Lassiter we all know and don't love—the snippy, sarcastic son of a bitch. I'd heard rumors you'd mellowed considerably on the job, which doesn't seem at all like you. I even heard you let a speeding violator off with a warning."

His thin lips twisted in a grimace of obvious scorn for such softness, but good Lord, it had been Trout's own mother, in town to visit him for God only knows what reason and on her way _out_ of town after what, by all accounts, had been a particularly contentious visit with her offspring. Carlton could hardly fault the old woman for speeding.

Besides, she'd given him oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. He was a sucker for a good cookie.

"I confess, I'd hoped it was because you'd been diagnosed with something extremely debilitating, quite possibly terminal, and as such, were making amends to this world before you departed it for the next, but that seemed entirely too unlike you. You're not the type to try to right all your wrongs or any of that namby pamby BS. Besides, I checked your medical records and subpoenaed your personal physician. Wanted to know if I needed to let you go before you tried to rip off the department insurance with a series of trumped up and undoubtedly expensive claims."

Surely Karen wouldn't hold it against him if he shot the son of a bitch? Just a little?

He could almost hear her sighing and settled for tightening his grip on the bottle.

"Your records came back clean—almost disgustingly so. Not even a trace of black lung from your ill-advised college smoking habit."

_Please? Can I, please?_

_If you shoot him, you have to stay to make a report._

_Dammit._

"So I decided to dig a little deeper." The grimace that normally passed for a smile broadened into something that reminded Carlton of the crocodile from _Peter Pan_, which he and Karen had watched with Iris just the weekend before and could he just say, those early Disney animated films? Creepy as _hell_. Ironically, that crocodile also had a thing for ticking devices, what with having swallowed the alarm clock and all, but when it came down to it, it was really Tinker Bell to whom Carlton thought Trout bore the strongest resemblance—jealous, spiteful, mean as a snake and capable of some pretty heinous acts so long as it ensured she got her own way.

He'd laugh at the vision of Trout in an acid green dress and wings if that crocodile smile wasn't so damned unsettling. Nevertheless, he remained silent and still, waiting the other man out.

"Imagine what I discovered." More teeth appeared, the bright afternoon light glinting off them and making them gleam with undisguised malice. "Go on, you can say it." He tugged at his cheap suit jacket with that air of self-importance that made Carlton's teeth itch. "We both know I know. And we both know this is going to end both of _you_."

Way Carlton saw it, he had a couple of viable choices. There was blustering and denial and all the approaches that he would have fallen back on in the past and which would, as they had in the past, fail. There was shooting, also an approach he would have fallen back on in the past, and which would not have failed, per se, but would likely make Karen angry with him, no matter how justifiable the circumstances.

Since he feared Karen's wrath far more than he feared anything Trout thought he had in his arsenal, shooting was out as well.

Which left calling his bluff.

What the hell.

"Oh, where would the fun be in that?" Pausing to drain the last of his root beer, he casually tossed the empty bottle away, grinning at Trout's sour frown as it landed solidly in the nearby recycling bin with a satisfying crash.

"You're both going down," Trout hissed. "You and soon-to-be _former_ Chief Vick. This tawdry affair you've been carrying on is most unacceptable for a superior officer and her subordinate."

Carlton shrugged. "She's single, I'm single, and since she's currently under suspension, I'm hardly her subordinate."

Only in certain situations—ones that were quite, _quite _mutually enjoyable and often wound up with her taking a turn at the subordinate position as well.

"Think this is funny, do you?" Trout snapped, making Carlton realize he must have been smiling as visions of a nude and deliciously sweaty Karen flitted through his mind.

"Not at all." With a sigh, he tossed the remains of his sandwich into the compost bin adjoining the recycling bin, his appetite nearly as far gone as his lunch break. "I just think you've got nothing. Our relationship didn't begin until after you recommended her for suspension."

Bastard.

"Then your definition of relationship and that of the many individuals with whom I've conducted interviews in the past week differs considerably."

Unease skittered along Carlton's spine. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Trout smiled again, this the thin, closed-lipped one he reserved for his most damning moments. "According to the reports I've compiled, the two of you were observed to be growing considerably closer _months_ before my arrival in Santa Barbara."

Well, _d'uh_. They'd been friends. And then they weren't, as Karen tried again with Richard, and then they were in love.

Just like _When Harry Met Sally_.

Who knew Hollywood romantic claptrap like that could actually come true?

"It'll be easy enough to establish the two of you had a something illicit going on—it would certainly go a long way toward explaining why she kept allowing the psycho-nitwits access to such a vast majority of your cases. O'Hara involved with Spencer, you involved with Vick. It'll make it very easy to clean house."

Strangely enough, Carlton _still_ wasn't overly perturbed. "Except it's well documented, certainly far better than anything you might have on me and Karen, that I can't stand Spencer and fought his involvement in cases at every opportunity."

"Except for when you conveniently sought him out." Trout practically radiated smugness to the point where even the sun scuttled behind a growing cloud, as if terrified. "No matter what you can come up with, I can counter it with something far more damaging, especially since I'm the one in the position of power."

Son of a bitch had a point. Still though—

"Half of what you're coming up with is nothing more than conjecture."

"And what do people love more? Conjecture or truth? Please—the truth's boring and the juicier the conjecture, the less proof I even have to provide which works out great for me, since I hate paperwork." Trout puffed up a bit more. "Face it, Lassiter. Stick a fork in it—you and your cronies, including your hot lady _luvvah_, are _done_." His gaze narrowed as it raked over Carlton. "Gotta hand it to you—I have no idea what in the hell a piece like that would see in the likes of you. I've often imagined she's a hellcat in bed—accustomed to being the boss. Obviously, she needs a _real_ man to keep her in line."

And _still_ Carlton remained calm. Calmer than he'd ever been in his entire life, really. Not that the desire to deck Trout wasn't present. It was and his hands were curling into painful fists from the sheer want—but three things kept him from hauling off and beating the hell out of the smarmy bastard—

One: Karen wouldn't like it.

Two: Karen deserved to do it herself.

Three: Carlton knew that watching Karen do it herself would provide him with what was likely to be one of the highlights of his entire life. Not as momentous as having Karen say she loved him or observing Iris' birth, but definitely, a highlight.

Trout let loose with a hoarse bark that Carlton assumed was supposed to pass for a laugh.

"Thought so."

Ignoring the scorn, Carlton asked, "Am I to assume my services are no longer needed then?"

"You're not a complete idiot. And you assume correctly. Go to the station and clear your crap out. Since I can't quite fire you outright—_yet_—consider yourself as joining Vick on suspension pending further investigation. I'll be informing O'Hara she's in the same boat and it's all your fault upon my return to the station."

The crocodile teeth reappeared. "God, this is _fun_." He spun and stalked off, brandishing the hated timer in one hand while calling out, "Tick tock, Lassiter. Tick suck it, tock."

"I'm thinking more a word that rhymes with _tock_ followed by sucker," Carlton muttered to Trout's retreating back, shooting the finger for good measure before glancing around in alarm, hoping no kids were nearby since he did _still_ wear the uniform of the SBPD and Karen would never forgive him for setting a bad example, suspended or not.

Okay, _he'd_ never forgive himself for setting a bad example. The job might not consume him entirely these days, but when it came down to it, Carlton had been a cop for a long time, was _still_ a cop, despite any of Trout's stupid-ass decrees, and damn well respected what the uniform stood for. a hell of a lot more than Trout ever would With a sigh he resumed his path toward Our Lady—his behavior called for a quick turn in the confessional, plus he still needed to pick up that holy water. Only then could he go home and break the news to Karen—

_After_ he hid her sidearm.


	13. YEAR EIGHT (Keep on, keepin' on)

**YEAR EIGHT (Keep on keepin' on…)  
**_**2014**_

**AN: ** Teeny, tiny bit o'**M **towards the end of the chapter. Fair warning for the faint-hearted.

* * *

"Are you finally ready to tell me what's going on?"

Startled, Carlton jerked his head up off the pillow to meet Karen's gaze—deep brown satisfaction tinged with the same renewed arousal he was experiencing, and riding right alongside, keen perception, exasperated tolerance, the merest hint of humor, and the emotion that somehow still managed to catch him by surprise—love.

Dammit.

There was no way around it.

He was a wuss.

A complete and utter wuss.

And not because he hadn't shot Trout when he had opportunity. That was just uncommon good sense, because shooting the son of a bitch could only result in jail, which would result in keeping him from Karen.

He'd cop to being a wuss and an idiot, but he wasn't a complete moron.

However, rather than come home and talk to the woman who was not only lover and best friend, but professional sounding board, about his run-in with Trout and subsequent Suspension Pending Further Investigation After Which He'd Surely Be Fired, he had instead allowed himself to be sucked into the minutiae of everyday life. Helping Iris with her social studies homework while Karen finished some paperwork and got started on dinner, then trading places, allowing her to take over with math while he marinated flank steak and tossed a broccoli slaw. Nothing millions of people around the world weren't doing—run of the mill, maybe even tedious tasks for the vast majority—but to him, still wondrous that this was his new reality.

Definitely not something he wanted to mar with the foul stench of rotten Trout.

But then, he'd also opted not to say anything when she'd asked about his day over dinner because, good Lord, so not appropriate dinner conversation with an impressionable child present, although it was never too early, in Carlton's opinion, to begin educating her in the ways of pompous asshats but definitely not over flank steak, medium-rare. He couldn't deny that by the time Karen dished up the chocolate ice cream he _had_ progressed to idly wondering when _would_ be the best time to introduce Iris to hand-to-hand combat? There were those twerpy little elementary school boys to contend with, who would grow up to become twerpy high school boys. He knew, because he'd been one. Then again, there was still time for that.

But not a good time for Troutisms.

Nor had a good moment presented itself either, during their early evening walk through the park, even though Iris had gamboled ahead, leaving them strolling behind at a considerable—yet safe—distance, hand-in-hand, because why ruin a perfectly nice walk? Besides, it wasn't the sort of conversation well-suited to the constant interruptions of an excited little girl making Big Discoveries and running back to ask questions about everything. No, it was not.

After they returned home, there'd simply not been time, what with Karen helping get Iris ready for bed, and then Carlton joining them to tuck her in, an experience he still found himself stunned to be part of and from which he derived a quiet pleasure to which he couldn't even put words. And once the door closed on the drowsy girl, Karen had silently beckoned him with those deep brown eyes, and he'd willingly responded because, you know, not _insane_.

Now he lay beside her, his breathing slowly steadying as she trailed her fingertips along his bare back in long, languorous strokes that had him feeling things a man who was a week shy of forty-five had no business feeling.

At least, not quite so soon after a bout of hot, sweaty, mind-blowing sex.

Horny sixteen-year-olds had no business feeling that way _that_ quickly.

But that's what she did to him.

Making love with Karen was a never ending source of delight and pleasure and discovery and always left him wanting more. Left him wanting to give her more.

None of which negated the fact that he was a wuss.

Not only was he a wuss, he was an idiot. Not that _that_ should have come as any big surprise.

He rolled to his back with a resigned sigh. "How'd you know?"

The edges of her mouth twitched slightly as the hand that had been stroking his back now sketched a light, delicate line beneath one of his eyes, across the bridge of his nose, then the other.

"They tell me everything," she said softly. "Even if they don't divulge the exact details, they tell me everything." She lowered her hand from his face to his abdomen as she curled more comfortably against him, sighing with obvious satisfaction as his arm settled around her shoulders.

"Then there's the not insignificant detail that you arrived home without your service weapon."

_Crap._

"I _could_ have left it in the gun locker at work."

It was remarkable how she could say more with one short, dismissive snort than most people could with an entire Shakespeare soliloquy.

"I _could_."

"You could," she replied so reasonably, he knew she was just humoring him. "It's not as if we don't have weapons here."

"Which reminds me," he broke in gratefully, "the new gun safe will be here at the end of the week."

The slight lift of her eyebrow let him know she was well aware of what he was doing, but she'd go with it—for now. "I maintain it was a completely unnecessary expense—the safe we already have is perfectly fine."

"And I maintain it absolutely was not," he countered easily, feeling himself on slightly firmer ground, even if he knew damned well it was an illusion. "I don't want there to be any possibility whatsoever for Iris to get into it, especially with my weapons added into the mix."

"I still say going full biometric was a bit excessive."

"At least I didn't get the one with the corneal scan," he protested.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, for God's sake, Carlton—it's not as if she hasn't grown up as a cop's kid. I've been schooling her in gun safety, starting with 'don't touch, _ever_,' since she was old enough to understand."

"Doesn't matter." He'd take absolutely no chances. Not with Iris. He hadn't even told Karen yet he'd made arrangements to sell several of his guns, planning on only keeping two personal favorites in addition to his service revolver, provided he ever got the thing back, which right now, didn't seem too likely.

"I do love you."

He stared down into her lovely face as his fingers played through her hair. "Even though I'm a paranoid son of a bitch?"

Marlowe had claimed she found it sexy. Somehow, he didn't imagine Karen felt the same way, especially given how often she'd scolded him in the past that his excessive paranoia had gotten in the way of his natural detective's instincts.

"You're not a para—okay, yeah, you are." She grinned up at him. "And I love you in spite of that. I love you because of how much you care."

Well, _d'uh_. "She's your daughter. How could I not?"

"And _that_ is why I love you." She tilted her head and studied him with her frank, open gaze. "However, while we're on the subject—in a manner of speaking—how set are you, really, on moving in?"

His brows shot up toward his hairline as his heart stuttered. "How set are _you_?"

"Relax, honey—" The pressure of her hand on his abdomen increased, as if to pin him in place. "You _know_ I don't mean about us living together."

He knew that. He did. They'd talked about it at great length. He wanted it—for sure. She wanted it—of that he was also sure. It was simply the next, natural step in the evolution of their relationship. Didn't stop him from sounding like Alvin the freakin' Chipmunk as he squeaked, "I know... I know... I just—"

"_Shh_—I'm not going anywhere," she soothed. "You _know_ that."

"I know," he sighed, his voice dropping into its normal register as the pressure on his throat eased. "I'm sorry—it's just sometimes, it almost doesn't seem real, you know?"

A ridiculous statement, rendered even more ridiculous by the fact that they were lying together, the sweat having barely dried on their bare skin, the scent of them still lingering in the air. It didn't get a whole lot more real than that.

And yet... and yet...

"Oh, Carlton—" Her eyes were dark with understanding. "You need to stop thinking what we have is more than you deserve."

"Tough transition," he admitted quietly. Because seriously—with his luck and history, who could blame him for sometimes worrying perhaps this was all just some elaborate delusion on his part?

"I know." Her hand stroked small circles on his stomach, her touch light and comforting. "And I intend to do everything I can to ease that transition for you until you believe, completely and with all your heart, that this is honestly real."

He stared down, wondering yet again, how in the _hell_ he'd ever gotten so fortunate? "My head might be stubborn and stupid, but my heart's already in your keeping."

Her smile was simultaneously gentle and mischievous. "And rest assured, the safe where I keep it is biometrically protected."

Another leap in his heart rate, but for altogether different reasons. "Oh?"

She leaned up and brushed a gentle kiss along the corner of one eye. "Finest protection available—corneal scan and everything."

He sighed as her mouth found his for an exquisitely gentle kiss and in that kiss, he felt her certainty and her reassurance that yes, dummy, it's _real._

Reluctantly breaking the kiss, he murmured, "Okay, so what did you mean?"

With a final kiss, her tongue tracing a velvet warm path across his lips, she pulled away. "I meant, before we go and permanently install the safe, do we need to talk about how set we are about staying _here_?" A faint line appeared between the delicate arches of her brows. "The offer to look for our own place—especially now with the condo sale finalized—is still on the table if you want."

After another few skittery bumps that had less to do with nerves and more to do with the taste of her that lingered in his mouth, his heart rate calmed back to a normal rhythm, allowing him to settle more comfortably against the pillows. Pulling her closer, he kissed the crown of her head.

"Sweetheart, I know you're concerned about this having been the house you bought and lived in with Richard, but honestly, it really doesn't bother me."

Silky blonde hair caressed his shoulder as she shook her head. "And here I thought a hallmark of the alpha male was his territorial nature."

He insinuated a leg between her thighs and rubbed suggestively. "It is."

When she tilted her head back, eyebrows raised, he grinned, thoroughly unrepentant.

"I can see you and I are going to have to have a discussion about what constitutes _territory_, my friend."

"Hey, feel free to stake your own claim at _any_ time."

His grin broadened as her eyes widened to the point a full ring of white was visible around the deep brown and her mouth dropped open slightly.

"Besides," he went on, "I'm all but completely moved in already. It would be a massive pain in the ass to pack up and move again, and what about Iris?"

"Iris is a child—they're famously adaptable."

Once again his heart skipped a beat—or six. "You so sure about that?" he asked softly, hating the slight tremor that underscored his voice.

Once again she increased the pressure of her hand to his stomach. "I'm sure. And so is she. She understands that Richard and I each love her beyond all reason, but we can't be together _just_ to love her. And she understands that I love _you_ and you love me and that you love her, too, and that you and I _will_ love her together." She shrugged, clearly unconcerned. "The rest of it, it's all adaptable."

With every word, every warm, delicate brush of Karen's breath against his skin, Carlton relaxed, even as he held her closer still. Aroused, sure, because holding her nude body close against his—hell, holding her fully-clothed—always brought arousal surging to the surface, but this time, as so often, there was more.

Every day with Karen, he discovered how much more he was capable of feeling.

"Thank you," he managed, taking her hand in his. "For all of it." He looked around the room, at the small, but significant additions of a few framed photos of himself and Karen, both alone and with Iris; his personal effects neatly arranged on the bedside table by what was now _his_ side of the bed. His robe was neatly thrown across the antique Windsor chair in the corner that had once lived in his bedroom, and a favorite black and white desert landscape photo salvaged from his former home office now hung on the wall painted a soft terracotta just the month before. The rest of the house reflected similar small touches, evidence of his life with Karen gradually increasing, like patina on fine silver.

"But honestly, baby, we're comfortable here. Aren't we? Unless it bothers you—" And if it did and she truly wanted to move, he'd call a real estate agent first thing in the morning. Or, you know, immediately.

"I'm good." She pressed her mouth to his chest in a brief kiss. "Even before you started staying over I'd changed enough that the house felt more… mine, I guess. Now, the more you're here, the more we can continue to make it ours."

He exhaled a sigh of relief. "Whatever you say, Chief—"

"Mmm… that's better," she murmured, walking her fingers up his stomach to his chest and his neck, stopping at his chin. With exquisitely delicate pressure, she directed his head down far enough to skewer him with her no-nonsense brown gaze. "Now," she said in a sweet voice he recognized really wasn't, "have we exhausted this topic sufficiently for you to tell me what in the _hell_ is going on?"

_Son of a—_

Carlton sighed. He should have known she wouldn't forget or let it slide. It wasn't in her nature. And didn't he rely on that very trait to yank his wayward ass back in line when he was on the verge of doing something stupid?

He did.

And truthfully, there really wasn't anything stupid about this, other than how he felt about failing. Again. But in terms of actually having _done_ anything stupid? Nope. Nothing.

For once.

Mostly because he'd had Karen with him, the voice in his head admonishing him to not do anything stupid.

So no, nothing stupid.

Aggravating and nerve-wracking? Absolutely.

Keeping his gaze fixed on the shadows the moonlight streaming through the window cast on the far wall, he quietly admitted, "Trout suspended me today."

"I see."

Mild. Steady. Not outwardly angry. Kind of classic Chief Vick, as a matter of fact He found that weirdly reassuring.

"And his reason?"

"Because he's a Trout-mouthed asshat?" When she remained silent, waiting, also in classic Chief Vick fashion, Carlton took a deep breath and dropped his gaze to meet hers. "He knows about us." He tightened his arm around her, in part to keep her from charging off the bed in search of her weapon and in part because he needed to hold on to her.

What Karen did next, Carlton knew he would never forget, mostly because it was so wholly, completely, and thoroughly unexpected—

She laughed.

Not a tight, nervous, _oh crap_ titter, but a full out, head thrown back, dear-God-this-is-hilarious, laugh.

"Son of a bitch is running scared."

Carlton drew back and stared at her, half-entranced, half-concerned she'd finally cracked, except he knew damn well she hadn't. She was Karen Vick, for God's sake, and if she hadn't cracked after suffering eight years of Spenceritis or his own ego-fueled, jackassed antics—usually performed as reaction to Spenceritis—then there was no way that the relatively straightforward news he'd been suspended would do it. Which could only mean she knew something he didn't know… yet.

"Um, Karen…sweetheart? Is it my turn to ask what the hell's going on?"

After the laughter subsided into the occasional giggle, she reached across him to snatch a tissue from the box with which to wipe her eyes—an action that left her nude torso dragging in most pleasurable fashion against his and had him briefly entertain the question of did he _really_ need to know _right_ this minute? A question she answered for him as she resettled herself, body curved closely to his, her hand back on his abdomen. Close, intimate, but talking intimate. Not… _intimate_.

Dammit.

But they did need to talk.

"I received another contract today."

_Not_ what he expected to hear. "I thought with being so close to the end of your suspension, you weren't going to take any other contracts."

"I wasn't, but this one's local and should be relatively short term."

"They've all been local, relatively speaking."

"Yeah, well, this one's really _really_ local." She stared up at him, eyes creasing slightly at the corners, the brown lit from within with an amber-gold glint he could only describe as "evil."

"No," he breathed as understanding struck.

"Oh, yeah—" She grinned, the evil deepening further. "Swagerty called himself this morning."

"Wait a minute, though—having you come in to consult and assess the SBPD—"

The job she'd unexpectedly found herself doing less than a month into her suspension when the Santa Clarita chief had called, looking for some advice. He'd heard she was… _available_ and well, if she was amenable, they could sure use an experienced eye and hand…

It had been an intriguing offer and had come at just the right time. As she'd said to him, "I _need_ to keep busy Carlton—the alternative is me taking on home improvement projects and that way lies madness."

True. He'd already had occasion to experience the madness firsthand after arriving one day after work bearing Chinese takeout only to discover she'd pulled up the carpet in the family room—"always hated that Berber crap"—with the intent of laying down hardwood. Never mind she'd never done it before.

Never mind she hadn't even bought the hardwood.

Privately, he was amused that his sober, meticulous, perfectionist Karen turned, when restless, into the Tasmanian Devil Martha Stewart. It was also amusing to discover something she _wasn't_ good at.

He'd spent that weekend installing the new floor—his first stamp on the house he would now be living in—and thankfully, a week and only a dismantled laundry room later, the offer to consult at Santa Clarita had come in.

Somewhere, Irony and the Universe were pouring themselves a shot of bourbon and sitting back to watch the show.

"Isn't that a conflict of interest?"

One soft, bare shoulder rose. "In theory, yes, but no more so than allowing the first consultant he hired to appoint himself the Interim Police Chief without so much as a by your leave with respect to protocol."

Holy crap. Carlton hadn't ever considered that aspect of Trout's less than glorious ascension to the throne, but of course Karen would. She probably knew every technical and political aspect of her job inside and out.

"In that case, Karen, why—"

"Didn't I fight it?" she finished when he faltered.

"Yeah." Because why wouldn't she? How could she not? She'd left them. She'd left _him_.

Except… she hadn't, really, because that was the same day she'd come to him. The same day she'd become _his_, completely and forever.

Still, he couldn't deny he'd missed her like hell at work. He would even happily accept having Spencer and Guster around on a regular basis if the tradeoff was Karen back where she belonged.

She sighed and pushed herself up higher to sit with her back against the headboard. "I didn't fight it for a lot of reasons."

As the breeze picked up, blowing through the room and bringing with it the scent of rain, she pulled the sheet up, tucking it under her arms. Missing her body's warmth against his, but sensing she needed distance, Carlton mirrored her position, his back against the headboard, sheet pulled to his waist, and on the mattress between them, his hand, palm up, an offering.

An instant later he found himself breathing easier as the warmth of her palm met his, fingers sliding between his with sensuous, comfortable ease.

"I didn't fight it because Swagerty was so new in the job and I knew he felt he had a lot to prove, especially considering the circumstances under which he came into office. Needed to put his own stamp on the city." The edges of her mouth quirked. "And it's not as if I could blame him, really. If I'd come into the same situation—"

"You mean with Spencer."

She nodded. "In part, yes." A rueful smile crossed her face. "You have to admit, Carlton, there were times it really _was_ more three-ring circus than well-oiled machine."

"I'll be the first to say it was and I'll be the first to say I hated it, most of the time." As that telltale eyebrow rose he amended it to a gruff, "Okay, I hated it all of the damned time." As the despised flush suffused his face with heat, he softened his tone and added, "However, one might argue that a three-ring circus requires even greater ability to keep the show running smoothly and _you're_ the one who did that."

And where in the hell had _that_ come from? He was all but endorsing how things had been for the last eight years when for the most part, they had driven him bananas and had been the very antithesis of how he would have done things.

Then again, what she'd said that day, standing before them, straight-backed and resolute, resonated deep within his head and his heart. It _had_ been a circus—but they'd made it work, he and O'Hara and yes, Spencer and Guster and their blithering inanities. For all his blustering and bitching, they'd made it work _very_ well and they'd gotten tremendous results.

She smiled and reached across her body to briefly cup his cheek with her free hand. "Thank you." Her thumb brushed his mouth in a butterfly sweet caress.

"You have no idea how much that means, baby, and yeah, my ego demands that I agree, but I meant what I said that day. It was a sword I was happy to fall on, every single time. I figured if I played nice, went along with whatever Trout suggested, it would go a long way toward showing good faith in Swagerty's leadership."

Made perfect sense when stated in her calm, reasonable voice. Whereas Carlton would have been perfectly content to punch the jackwagon into next week for inflicting Trout on them in the first place. Which proved yet again, why Karen had been so very successful as Chief.

Too bad Swagerty was only realizing it _now_.

So that was _one_ reason.

Correctly reading his expression she softly said, "I figured if I was away from the job, it would give me the space and time necessary to fix things with you." Her thumb brushed his mouth again. "Getting the call that you'd been demoted made me move a little faster than I might have planned, but in the end, only hastened the inevitable."

"Thank God," he breathed, the tip of his tongue brushing the pad of her thumb, tasting the sweet saltiness of her skin and making him want her, now… always….

Mustering all his willpower, he took her hand in his free one and after a brief kiss to her palm, lowered it to her lap with a rueful, "Too distracting."

"Sorry," she said, looking anything but.

"Are not," he countered, "but you're also not done." He took a deep breath, willing his hormones to settle the hell down. "So why is Swagerty coming to you now?"

The pure evil returned, turning her eyes near-gold and curving the edges of her mouth into a smile that radiated a cunning satisfaction that had Carlton shifting uncomfortably. Good Lord, but she was beautiful when plotting.

"Because Tom Swagerty is damned sick and tired of having to field citizen complaints about the police department that have gone unaddressed by said police department for oh... five months."

"Holy crap—how many complaints can there be?"

"A lot." Karen's slender pale fingers pleated the silvery-gray cotton of the sheet. "Even when the department is running well, citizen complaints come in on a fairly regular basis. I spent a _lot_ of time going through those complaints, assessing the severity, delegating who could best handle them, deciding which ones needed my personal attention. I always believed that part of being a good chief was being accessible to our constituents. Allowing them to hold _me_ accountable, since I was the public face of the department."

"You protected us," he said wonderingly, recalling again the plaque that the late, not-really-all-that-lamented Gavin Channing had awarded Karen for her service. And that Spencer had grandstanded right over, but he wouldn't think about that right now, because the only person he wanted raising his blood pressure in bed was currently right beside him.

She smiled down at the sheet. "Despite Shawn's many foibles and shenanigans, you all made it relatively easy. You did such good work—everyone did."

"Including you." Abruptly, he turned to his side and slid down in bed, taking her with him. Holding her tight against his chest he whispered into her hair, "You really are the best damned Chief we've ever had."

"Did you really say that to Trout?" Her breath blew in damp, warm gusts against his skin as her hands held tight to his shoulders.

He rolled her to her back and rose far enough to look down into her face. "How'd you know?"

Her hands rose to his face, her fingertips playing through the short hair of his sideburns and teasing his ears. "O'Hara told me—that day. When she called to tell me what Trout had done."

"Oh, _crap._" He was torn between vexed and melting into her caress. "Yes, I said it. Of course, it sort of lost some of its impact after I then immediately acted like an obsequious asshat in the wake of his pronouncement." And he still hated himself for that and would spend the rest of his life making it up to her. "But I swear to God, I meant it. And I don't give a damn that the SBPD is only a hundred and fourteen years old. _Not_ fifty," he added under his breath.

She looked up at him, clearly startled. "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"That was Trout's counter to my claim. The clear implication being that you being the best chief in the history of such a relatively new department didn't count for much."

"What a putz." She tensed beneath him, relaxing only when he lowered his head and found her mouth with his, kissing the tension away. It was only when he felt her warm and pliable in his arms that he finally lifted his head, and met her glittering gaze.

"I'll be fair, Carlton—I swear to God, I'll be fair. And that's exactly what's going to be his damned downfall."

Heat stirred low in his gut, prompting him to insinuate a thigh between hers and rub, hard, conveying both arousal and intent. "Have I ever told you how unbelievably hot you are when you're on the warpath?"

She smiled, a feral, dangerous smile, and squirmed beneath him until she had both thighs wrapped around his hips and was welcoming him into her waiting, anxious body.

"Have I ever told you how hot battle makes me?"

"Perfect woman," he sighed as he sank fully into her.

"Perfect for you," she sighed in return with a strong, deliberate contraction of muscles just where he'd feel it most.

"Dear God, yes," he groaned.

"Yes," she agreed with another drawn out sigh. "And _we_, my love are going to take our department right the hell back."

Yes. Of course. Whatever she said. Whatever she wanted. What department?

He withdrew slowly, relishing her groan and the way her nails dug into his shoulders with fiery intent.

"Later," he said hoarsely.

"Mmm… yes...later." She smiled again—that smile meant only for him, that he only saw here, in their bed—and welcomed him back into her body, feeling as if she was holding him even closer than before. "Much."


	14. YEAR EIGHT (Where things get good)

**YEAR EIGHT (And here's where things get good…)**

* * *

"This is complete and utter crap, Tom."

"I'll be the judge of that, Harris."

"I don't know what the hell sort of lies she fed you to convince you this was necessary, but hey—_surprise_—so not necessary."

"You seem to be of the opinion—mistaken, might I add—that you actually have a say in the matter."

"Damned straight I have a say in the matter—it's my damned department!"

Swagerty's brows rose, but to his credit, he kept his voice mild. "The City of Santa Barbara's department that I brought you in to assess."

"Exactly!"

"And of which I allowed you to take _temporary_ control in order to steer back on course—as per _your_ assessment."

"Exactly!"

"Not destroy."

"Exac—whoa—" Trout's habitually florid face reddened further. "Whaddaya mean destroy? What the hell has she told you?"

Karen calmly observed the verbal volley from where she sat at the conference room table. She kind of wished she had popcorn and a beer, instead of coffee, but felt as if perhaps that might not jibe too well with the professional demeanor she was currently struggling to maintain.

"_She_ didn't have to tell me anything." Swagerty held up a bulging manila folder held together with a heavy-duty rubber band. "Because I had these telling me everything. At least everything I needed to know in order to call in an outside source for independent verification."

"What the hell is that?"

"Evidence of what you consider steering the department back on course." Swagerty tossed the folder to the table where it landed with a substantial thud. "Go on, look."

Karen continued watching silently, sipping her coffee and not even feeling bad that she half-wished the straining rubber band would snap and perhaps take a watery blue eye out.

Sadly, no rubber band snappage. New rubber band. Good quality rubber. Pity.

Trout sneered as he quickly riffled through the folder's contents filled with, as Karen now knew, complaints from messages to the department going unanswered to the far more troubling lack of response from officers to calls ranging from routine to serious. Calls whose responses were determined by initiatives developed and sanctioned by Trout himself. Alleged cost-cutting measures.

Karen, frankly, hadn't been able to uncover any evidence that the cost-cutting had yielded benefits other than the new espresso machine residing in Trout's office. The office from which _everyone_ was prohibited—under any circumstances—Trout preferring to meet with his underlings in the conference room.

Not even the cleaning crew was allowed in. Good thing, considering Trout had cut them back to a skeleton staff with vastly reduced hours.

Karen had made a note in her report that a full audit would be necessary. Tom wasn't happy, especially considering the cost it was going to incur, but he'd agreed it was necessary to begin with a completely clean slate.

"This is B.S., Tom. Petty nonsense."

"I don't consider deliberately and repeatedly ignoring our constituents to be petty."

Trout made another one of those noises.

"And I can't even begin to fathom the logic behind your directive to filter calls that come in through Emergency Services. You created and instituted what amounts to a litmus test by which cases had to be assessed before anyone would be sent out to investigate?"

"Cost efficiency," Trout responded, secure in his arrogance. "A lot of those calls are nothing more than a waste of time. You know that."

"The Sherriff and Fire Chief who had to pick up our slack and lodged their own complaints don't seem to think so. Neither do the DOJ and the Attorney General, who is currently breathing holy fire down my neck because of _your_ tactics."

"It's all smoke and mirrors, Tom. Attempts to bully the new guy. They'll back down once you show them the results of my tenure."

"They've _seen_ the results of your tenure," Swagerty exploded. "Why do you think she's here now?"

"The woman who allowed the department to fall into disarray in the first place. Who catered to every namby pamby complaint that crossed her desk while ignoring the real issues."

Karen wondered it was possible for Trout to sneer any harder.

"Because she's _such_ a reliable source."

Huh. Guess it was possible. And yet… amazing how very easy to ignore. She turned to Swagerty. "I trust you read the rest of my report?"

"What report? Seriously, what the hell, Tom?"

"Oh, shut it, Harris."

Trout puffed up, his eyes nearly bulging out of his increasingly red face, a greasy lock of hair falling onto his forehead. "Why should I?"

The mayor rolled his eyes so dramatically, Karen found herself nearly choking on the sip of coffee she'd just taken.

"Why?" Swagerty propped his hands on the conference table. "Maybe because I'm the mayor. Maybe because I'm your boss. Maybe because despite your over-inflated ego and incredibly misguided sense of importance, I am essentially the law around here. But mostly, because you give me a headache."

With each word, he leaned further and further forward, his reflection sharpening in the table's highly polished surface until it appeared that two Swagertys were looming, one from under, one from above, essentially hemming Trout in.

Still, though, the other man wouldn't back down, fists balled on his hips, chin thrust forward belligerently.

Karen had to wonder about the man's arrogance.

Or stupidity.

Given his demeanor, she was currently leaning toward the latter.

"You're saying you had this incredibly unqualified woman," he practically spat the word in a way that had Karen wishing she was carrying a weapon, "make a report on the department from which she was dismissed?"

"Suspended," Swagerty corrected in a deceptively mild voice, although anyone with sense could hear the tension underlying the single word.

Trout made a noise that sounded disconcertingly like one of the dismissive noises at which Mr. Spencer was so practiced and which had, in the past eight years, become the primary cause of her dentist's growing concern over her tooth enamel.

"She wasn't ever coming back and we both know it," he countered with a withering look Karen's direction.

"I didn't know that." Swagerty's glance at Karen was equal parts reassuring and exasperated, cementing her gut instinct that that pronouncement was, indeed, news to him as well.

"I would have thought the department's performance since her dismissal," Trout stressed the word defiantly, "would have convinced you that the change in direction was for the best."

"In what universe?"

Trout stared at Swagerty, as if realizing for the first time that things were not going his way and he wasn't at all certain how it had happened on his watch.

"_You_." Unable to vent on Swagerty, he turned his ire on Karen. "I thought your skulking around here this past week was simply to familiarize yourself with current departmental conditions before your scheduled return."

"You ignored my repeated requests to speak with you ." She shrugged and took a sip of coffee. "I imagine it's because you deemed them unimportant since you were planning on blocking my return."

Trout's eyebrows shot up. "Well, _d'uh_."

Once again she refused to rise to the bait. "If you had asked, however, I would have been more than happy to fill you in on why I was… how did you put it?" She pretended to think. "Skulking around." She shot him her most brilliant, patently false smile, taking entirely too much enjoyment in the way his right eye appeared to start twitching.

"In retrospect, however, it was probably best I was able to do my work without you attempting to interfere. Allowed me to obtain an unvarnished view of the current departmental conditions."

"Made for some fascinating reading," Swagerty broke in. "You did an incredibly thorough job, Karen. I can see now why you came so highly recommended by the other mayors and city managers."

"What other mayors and city managers?" Trout squawked and boy, he finally did seem to be getting that things weren't at all going his way.

"If you'd taken my requests," Karen said mildly, "I would have informed you that during my months of suspension, I developed a bit of a side business."

"As a _consultant_?" Trout said, clearly incredulous overlaid with a hint of his typical acid. "That's unethical."

Trout's visage blurred as she coughed and fought to choke down the sip of coffee she'd just taken.

Swagerty's voice floated over her head as he helpfully pounded her back. "Harris, if you have even an ounce of brainpower left beneath whatever the hell you use to make your hair do that, you'll stop right there."

Did he?

Of _course_ he didn't.

"Tom, this just cements why she shouldn't be permitted to return as Chief of Police. Aside from her utter incompetence."

"Good thing then, I'm not returning." Karen groped in her pocket for a tissue with which to wipe her streaming eyes, then felt fresh tears well as she watched the spark of smug joy that lit Trout's pale eyes to a frosty blue. Anemic, when compared to Carlton's eyes—hell, downright lifeless when compared to the varying, shifting shades of blue that showed anger and aggravation and passion and love with equal fervor.

"And neither are you." Swagerty's voice wasn't loud, but it nevertheless rang with authority and conviction. It was a statement delivered in a way that brooked absolutely no argument and for the first time, Trout appeared to remember that the other man was, indeed, his boss and that, oh yeah, he answered to him.

Once again, he turned on Karen. Eyes narrowed, he hissed, "You bitch."

Unperturbed, she responded, "You say that as if you think it's the first time I've ever heard it."

Taken aback that she wasn't cowering or even angry, he turned back to Swagerty. "You can't fire me based on the recommendation of the woman I suspended."

"I'm not." Swagerty crossed his arms. "Karen wouldn't even consider accepting this contract until I agreed that she would only give me a report on departmental conditions as they currently stand. The decision of what to do with you remained squarely with me. The only concession I was able to wrangle from her was that she give me her suggestions for a new Chief if it was indeed the direction I chose to go based on the results of her assessment."

As if on cue, a tap sounded at the conference room door. Trout's automatic bark of dismissal was cut short by Swagerty's glare, followed by his bid to enter. Karen turned in her chair just as Carlton, clad in charcoal slacks, a dark blazer, and a pale blue button-down left open at the neck, strode into the room.

As always, Karen's heart skipped a beat at the sight of him him—so tall and handsome and resolute. Seeing him _here_, where he belonged, and knowing why he had to be here, even though she hadn't known—not for sure… not until this moment—her heart skipped a whole host of beats. Enough to leave her breathless.

And so damned happy.

"Detective—" Swagerty closed the distance between them, hand extended. "Glad you could make it on such short notice."

"Of course." Carlton took Swagerty's hand although his gaze remained fixed on Karen's, confusion rendering the normally clear blue cloudy and opaque. "And please, it's just Carlton."

A hint of his natural acerbity crept into his voice at that, causing a pang of guilt to shoot through Karen. How it had to feel for him walking into this place he'd once ruled, second only to her. She'd felt horribly guilty not saying anything—but she couldn't. Especially since she herself hadn't known what the outcome would be. She'd hoped of course, but there hadn't been any guarantees until the moment she saw him walk into the conference room.

"Of course, Carlton." Swagerty held Carlton's hand until he had his attention. "Although I confess to hoping that after today, you'll allow me to call you Chief."


	15. YEAR EIGHT (From whence surprises come)

**YEAR EIGHT (From whence surprises keep coming)**

* * *

Carlton swayed. paling so suddenly and so alarmingly, Karen found herself out of her chair and by his side before even making the conscious decision to move.

Immediately, he turned to her. "Karen?" he said weakly.

"Let me talk to him," she murmured to a bemused Swagerty. Grasping Carlton's elbow, she carefully led his unresisting form to the far corner of the room. She turned him so he was closed off from everything and everyone but her. Dammit—he was so still and shocked and as far as she could tell, barely breathing. Only his eyes—huge blue beacons in the ghostly stunned blankness of his face—showed any signs of life.

"Karen, what the hell?"

She cupped his face between her palms, forcing his gaze down to her. "It's okay, Carlton."

"What does he mean, 'Chief?' You're the Chief." Despite remaining soft, his voice rose in pitch, each word tinged with increasing panic.

"No, baby, I'm not."

He blinked owlishly, as if attempting to make sense of her words. "Trout sure as hell isn't," he finally said flatly.

Heartened by this obvious sign of the irascible Carlton she knew so well, she gently said, "You're right—he isn't either. He's being let go."

"So that makes you Chief."

Holding his head steady between her palms, she stared deep into his eyes. "No, baby," she repeated softly. "I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"I'm not." She kept her voice impossibly gentle and soft. "I'm not coming back."

His hands came up and grasped hers, growing desperation evident in the chill of his skin and the tremors that thrummed through them like a live wire. "You have to." The panic returned as he insisted, "I can't be here without you."

She held his gaze. "You can and you will. It's your time."

Color rushed into his face. "I won't take it," he said decisively. "Swagerty's out of his mind if he doesn't realize you belong here and I don't want to work for anyone that unbelievably stupid—"

"I turned him down."

His mouth shut, mid-tirade, his face paling again. "You _what_?"

She lifted a shoulder. "His original intention was to reinstate me, I turned him down."

"But…" He blinked. "_Why_?"

"It's not what I want anymore. Turns out, I kind of like being a consultant. And I'm pretty damned good at it."

She tightened her hold on his hands. "This job… it's cost me one relationship already." She allowed herself a rueful smile. "Well, that and the no longer compatible part. But I can't deny a large part of why we were no longer compatible had to do with the job."

"But Richard wasn't a cop."

She understood precisely what he was saying and loved him all the more for it. "I'm not taking any chances."

His eyes widened again as he absorbed the quiet fervor of her statement then nodded slowly, as if finally beginning to accept she was absolutely serious. And certain.

"When I was Head Detective, it consumed me, Karen," he said quietly. "What makes you think being Chief—"

"Perspective," she broke in. "And having a partner who understands exactly what you're dealing with. It's the best of both worlds, honey. And you'll finally have the job you deserve."

His shoulders rose and fell in a huge breath, color finally restored to something closer to normal. "Is consulting going to be enough for you? Because if it's not, I swear to God, Karen, I won't take the job and I'll be damned if I let Swagerty offer it to anyone else. There's no one else who could do this job the way you do."

Her heart pounded with the enormity of what he was saying. "You wanted this job for so long," she said quietly. "You've earned it and more importantly, you deserve it."

He released her hands to gently grasp her shoulders, his long fingers warm and strong even through the fabric of blazer and blouse. "I want you to be happy more."

Tears pricked the backs of her eyes at the power beneath his simple statement. "I love you, Chief Lassiter."

"I love you, too." A corner of his mouth twitched. "And I haven't accepted the damned offer yet."

"You will."

At her quiet vehemence, the finely etched lines of his mouth eased further into a faint smile that almost immediately faded.

"What is it?"

"Karen, this can't possibly look good."

"What do you mean?"

"You, me…" One hand left her shoulder to vaguely encompass their surroundings. "This situation and the job and, well _this_…" he finished helplessly.

Oh. She finally understood his meaning. "I had nothing to do with your ultimate selection."

At the way his brows drew together in their familiar scowl she insisted, "I didn't, I swear."

"He's screwing your _consultant's_ brains out and you want me to believe that had nothing to do with the choice of him as Chief?"

"Carlton, _no_—" At the last possible second, Karen grabbed Carlton around the waist and held on tight, preventing him from charging across the room and quite possibly committing murder. Because really, _so _not a good way to start off his tenure as Chief.

No matter how justifiable the circumstances.

He fought her hold. "Son of a bitch is accusing you of—"

Karen dug in her heels and tightened her arms. "And we both know he would be wrong."

Trout sneered and seriously, did the evil bastard not have any other expressions in his arsenal? "Bullsh—"

"Shut it, Harris," Swagerty snapped. "Karen submitted a dossier of six highly qualified candidates both from within the ranks of the SBPD as well as other communities. Ultimately, the City Council and I decided it best to stick close to home for our final selection."

"Why the hell was he even included?" Trout snapped with a withering glare at Carlton. "He'd been busted down to uniform."

"By you." Swagerty's tone made it clear what he thought of _that_. "Prior to that, Lassiter had more than two decades of service to the department, including a very successful tenure as Head Detective that included multiple commendations for service, including one for taking down a notorious gang with ties to Serbian organized crime and another simply for putting up with Shawn Spencer on a regular basis."

Hands in his pockets, the mayor rocked back on his heels, a shrewd expression narrowing his sharp brown eyes. "As it so happens, Harris, it was in reviewing the entirety of Lassiter's credentials that your fate was ultimately sealed. The council simply could not figure out what the hell prompted you to bust him down to uniform."

A small evil smile creased Swagerty's craggy features. "The best they could figure was that you were suffering some sort of mental breakdown, especially when coupled with your actions since taking charge of the department. They felt compelled to have a psychiatrist brought in to review your file. His unofficial diagnosis is narcissistic personality disorder. Thankfully, mine came back as nothing more than exhibiting bad judgment," he added, almost as an afterthought.

There were so many things bulging on Harris Trout, from the vein in his forehead, to his eyes, to his Adam's apple, Karen had to wonder how he didn't combust right where he stood, leaving behind nothing more than an oily stain.

"Narcissistic personality disorder—" he spluttered. "That's what that idiot Spencer was diagnosed as having."

"Yeah," Swagerty drawled. "Go figure."

Utter silence reigned for several long moments, broken only by the ferocious slam of the door and the crackling of the large plate glass windows on either side as they erupted in a fine web of cracks in Trout's wake.

"Let's make sure to send him a bill for that," Swagerty said as he turned to face them. "You can make it your first official act as Chief," he added to Carlton with another one of those shrewd brown glances. "Now that you know your hiring had little to nothing to do with your relationship with Karen and everything to do with who you are as a cop."

Carlton hit the mayor with a hard glance. "You don't buy into the popular theory that I was completely unable to do my job without Spencer's assistance?"

Karen fought to keep her eyes from rolling straight out of her head. Honestly, the man would remain skeptical until the day he died. If she didn't kill him before then.

"You were here long before Spencer ever showed up," Swagerty said. "You were here every damned day he opted _not_ to show up, working every case that crossed your desk, regardless of whether or not it was particularly interesting or flashy enough to garner you headlines. Which," he added drily, "I know you happen to like a great deal. But that desire to be publicly acknowledged never stopped you from working the mundane cases. The everyday cases. _That's_ the cop this city deserves and that's the cop I want leading this force. You up for it?"

Carlton held the mayor's gaze for another instant before turning to Karen, creating, much as she had earlier, a bubble of privacy around them. "Are you sure?" he asked urgently. "Are you abso-damn-lutely sure?"

Nearly overwhelmed with emotion, Karen traced his face with wondering fingers, seeing fewer lines, less gray, and a hell of a lot more anger before that image faded, replaced with the man who stood before her now. A little older, a lot wiser, still angry—or at least irritated—entirely too often, and the man she would never have imagined loving this much all those years ago.

"A long time ago," she began slowly, "I made a promise to myself that I would never, ever again stand in the way of your badge. That I would never again be the instrument that took it from you."

As she spoke, his eyes darkened, turning an intense, stormy blue. Karen knew him well enough to know he instantly understood to what she referred even though it was an incident they'd never directly discussed. "Karen, losing my badge back then was _not_ your fault."

"Maybe not. But I didn't stand up for you then," she said quietly, the guilt surging forward as powerfully as if the entire mess had just occurred yesterday. "I won't _ever_ make that same mistake again."

His hand rose to her face, mimicking the movements of her hand on his. "Don't give this to me out of some misguided sense of guilt."

"I'm not." She turned her head just far enough to ghost a kiss across the inside of his wrist. "The simple truth is, Carlton, I don't _want_ it. Not anymore. I'm ready to move on. We have so many new roads to explore, baby. Roads that will be better navigated with us in these new roles."

"Okay." His expression relaxed, but only slightly. "Okay," he repeated more decisively. "But only if you're _sure_."

Karen fought a smile. Skeptic to the end, God love him.

"I'm sure."

And if he fought her or doubted her or in any way behaved like an idiot, she was going to clock him straight upside the head.

Luckily for him—and her—all he did was sigh and pull her fully into his arms, holding her close. "I love you," he whispered into her hair.

"I love you, too." She pressed a discreet kiss to the skin left exposed by his open collar. "Now, for the love of God, please accept the job already."

"Yes, dear," he drawled, making her laugh and shake her head in exasperation. At the very least, life with Carlton would never _ever_ be boring. But then, she'd known that for nearly eight years already.

"So… does that mean we have a deal?"

Smiling down at her, he waited for her nod, then turned back to Swagerty. One arm firm around her shoulders he said, "We have a deal—on one condition."

Swagerty's brows rose, although a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. "Oh?"

"I take the job only if I hire Karen as a consultant for the next two months to ease the transition. After all, who else knows the job as well as she does? Not to mention, who else has a better handle on what the hell kind of mess I'm walking into. I need her." His voice took on shades of the old Detective Lassiter arrogance, overlaid with a deep, now-familiar desire that layered his words with additional nuance and meaning and that left Karen virtually thrumming with anticipation.

She wondered if she would ever be able to hear the Detective—_Chief_—Lassiter voice without now hearing those same overtones of desire.

Note to self—future office visits would have be undertaken with great care. And a lot of ice water handy.

She was a dork.

A lovelorn, hormonal, besotted dork.

She was good with that.

"Funny, that," Swagerty said as he headed toward the door. "She had the same condition if we hired you." He lifted a hand in goodbye. "I'll see you in my office first thing tomorrow morning—Chief Lassiter."

As the door closed with a quiet click, Carlton turned to stare at her. Unperturbed, Karen lifted a shoulder.

"Hey, the other candidates could be on their own for all I cared, but I wasn't about to drop you into this disaster on your own. There had to be some perks to this particular consultant's gig. And like you said, I have a pretty good handle on what's been going on."

Admiration combined with clear desire in the ocean blue depths of his gaze. "I think you as an ace negotiator makes me almost as hot as you on the warpath."

"I'll keep that in mind." She fought a yawn, the stress of the past week and the morning's drama catching up to her. "Now, why don't we go grab an early lunch, then go home and make love until it's time to pick Iris up from school?"

The blue darkened further as a predatory grin crossed his face. "That's a plan I can get behind." He followed her back to the table, rapidly gathering the scattered files and handing them to her so she could slip them into her briefcase.

As she zipped the case closed, he braced his forearms on the back of a chair and studied her.

"What?"

He paused, front teeth sinking into his lower lip. "What made you so certain you didn't want the job?"

She lifted a brow. "Aside from all the reasons I already gave you?"

He nodded. "I like to think I know you, Karen." Hurt, faint, but nevertheless distinct, colored his voice as he added, "I like to think I know when you're not telling me everything."

With a sigh, she set the briefcase back on the table. Not exactly how she'd planned it, but then again, the man was a damned good detective. Not to mention, right. He knew her. Better than anyone else.

Stepping close to him, she wrapped her arms around his waist, rose on tiptoe, and whispered in his ear.

And managed to spin the chair in enough time to catch him as his legs gave way.


	16. YEAR NINE (More or less)

**YEAR NINE (More or less…)  
**_**2014**_**  
**

**AN: **Teeny tiny bit of **M** alluded to within. Also, many, many, _many_ thanks to all of you who stood up and stood with me and Loafer and all the other authors who were attacked simply because we dare to write unconventional 'ships and enjoy particular characters more than others.

That's the beauty of fanfic, y'all—the endless "What ifs" there are to discover. And now, this particular _What if_? comes to a close.

* * *

"Yes, sweetheart, I know. The early bird catches the worm and all that. When Carlton and I get back from this seminar we can start planning your Halloween costume. I promise. Yes, I still think the S.W.A.T. uniform costume is a bad idea."

Carlton made a noise deep in his throat then flinched as she smacked his shoulder, though she didn't miss a beat as she spoke to Iris.

"At least this year. Yes, I know Carlton said it was a great costume for scaring the boys—"

Completely true.

"But I don't necessarily think it's something you need to be worrying about just yet."

Not true.

"No, you really don't."

Yes, she really did. Boys were evil little beasts and the sooner Iris got a handle on dealing with them, the better as far as Carlton was concerned.

"Now, be good for Daddy. Make sure you do your homework without arguing. Carlton and I will be home before you know it."

Yeah, and if it was up to him, they wouldn't even be leaving home at all, but Karen had insisted. It would be his first conference as Chief of the SBPD and probably their last opportunity to get away, just the two of them before—

"I love you, too, honey. We both do. Always." Karen hit the end button on the call and dropped her phone into the holder between them.

"_We_ need to talk about appropriate suggestions."

"There is nothing inappropriate about being prepared."

"Carlton—"

He sighed and bit back his retort, recalling the promise he'd made to himself to do his best to not stress her unnecessarily.

"Sorry," he sighed.

"It's okay," she soothed, stroking his forearm. "I know you mean well, but she only _just_ turned eight. I think we have a little time yet before boys are an issue."

"Not enough," he grumbled. Especially since Iris was obviously going to be every bit as lovely as her mother. Well, close. Because no one could be as beautiful as Karen, in his less-than-humble opinion.

It was a husband's prerogative, dammit.

Beside him, Karen stretched and winced, immediately putting Carlton on the alert.

"Are you all right? Do we need to stop? I _knew_ we shouldn't have—"

Her hand returned to his forearm. "Stop it."

He stopped.

Talking, that, that is. Driving, he somehow miraculously kept doing.

"I'm fine, just tired and mildly uncomfortable, but not so much so we need to stop for anything and yes, I promise I'll let you know, and yes, we most assuredly should have."

From the corner of his eye he caught her sultry glance as her voice dropped on the last, the two combining to start the familiar heat burning low in his gut and points south.

"I shouldn't have, though," he said weakly. Seriously, he shouldn't have, he should have been strong, he was all kinds of a _dog_, but dear God, she was just so spectacularly gorgeous and lush and she'd beckoned him back to bed after his shower this morning with that same dark, sultry glance and while they had to be… creative, it hadn't lessened the passion in the slightest. He'd nestled in behind her, stroking gently while his hands had roamed Karen's glorious eight-months-pregnant curves, giving her everything she wanted, because more than anything, that's what he lived for.

Giving his beautiful wife everything she wanted, because it couldn't even come close to matching everything she'd given him. Everything she gave him every single day.

But still, making love this close to her due date—no matter how unbelievably wonderful it had felt to have her falling apart around him, her highly sensitized body so incredibly responsive and drawing an equally charged and powerful climax from him—it was terrifying. Never mind the doctor had said, with a small smile, that sex as they approached her due date was not only okay, provided Karen was up for it and they took certain precautions in terms of position,, the more likely it was to trigger labor.

Basically, she gave them her blessing to go forth and boink like bunnies.

Carlton had been mildly reassured. A lot terrified. Karen had been smug. And horny, barely allowing him to cross the threshold of their home before she was tearing his clothes off and demanding he take her right over the family room armchair.

That had been a month ago and her ardor hadn't waned in the slightest.

Neither had his.

But _still_—

The closer they got to her due date the more worried he got and now she'd insisted on accompanying him to Sacramento and really, three weeks wasn't all that far away and dammit, they should have stayed home. There would be other conferences for the chiefs to get together and kibbitz over cold cuts and watered down cocktails.

"Actually, honey…you _definitely_ should have."

The odd timbre of her voice had him risking a glance over to see her rubbing her stomach which, as he watched, rippled beneath the fabric of her blouse.

He glanced back at the highway, grateful to see it was straight and relatively clear, then glanced back at her, noting the slightly unfocused look in her eyes and the way one hand had crept around to her back.

"Karen…"

She smiled, almost guiltily, it seemed. "At least this time your briefcase is in the backseat?"

His eyes widened. "Your water broke?"

She nodded.

"You're in labor?"

"It would seem so." She grabbed his hand from the steering wheel and put it on her stomach which had tightened to rock hard levels. An instant later, the muscles beneath his palm rippled and then tightened again.

"Holy…" He cursed that they were in his car and not one of the department sedans, because this time, he didn't have a light or a siren. But he did have a nav system by God, and had memorized the sequence of buttons that would get him to the list of the nearby hospitals without having to divert attention from the road or the woman beside him.

"Swear to God, Karen," he groused as he tightened his grip on the wheel and accelerated. "I am _never_ taking you anywhere when you're this pregnant ever again."

"Somehow, I don't think that's going to be an issue," she groaned.

"Is that because you currently hate me?"

"No. Wait until the contractions are only a minute apart. _Then_ I'll hate you." Her voice leveled back into its normal soothing register. Once more she reached for his hand and held it in hers. "I just never imagined I'd ever have the opportunity to have you take me anywhere when I was this pregnant ever again."

His fingers tightened around hers as a lump appeared in his throat. Neither had he. After Marlowe, he'd lost hope he'd ever have the opportunity to make this sort of rushed, frantic drive to a hospital to watch his child being born. So he'd held tight to the memories of watching Iris being born—of being there for Karen. And even after they'd started their relationship, the possibility hadn't really occurred to him. Karen had Iris and never mentioned any desire to have more children and frankly, he was so damned happy to have both of them in his life. He honestly hadn't imagined it could get any more complete.

Turned out, "complete," had just a little more room left. Enough to accommodate at least one more. Who, it appeared, was equally anxious to be made part of "complete."

"I love you," he murmured, lifting her hand to his mouth and brushing a kiss across the wide, brushed white gold of her wedding band.

"I love you, too." She freed her hand and ran it through his hair. "As proof of how much I love you, I promise, you can say 'I told you so,' about traveling this close to my due date as many times as you want and I won't argue."

"Really?"

"Really."

"How about rethinking the natural birth thing?" Because seriously, he wasn't certain he could go through that again. More importantly, he didn't want _her _to go through that again.

"Not. Negotiable," she said through gritted teeth as she took his hand again, her grip tight. "It'll be fine, so long as you don't 'motivate' the way you did before."

The panic he'd felt eight years earlier welled up, all the lessons gleaned from the Lamaze classes feeling incredibly inadequate. "What do you want me to do, then?" he asked helplessly, grateful beyond all measure to see the exit indicated for the hospital rapidly approaching.

Her grip tightened. "Just be there—and don't leave me."

"Always—and I will never leave you. Ever."

"Then let's go have a baby."

* * *

Carlton carefully eased the car to a stop and glanced in the rearview mirror to see Karen dozing in the back alongside the infant seat he'd installed with Henry's assistance and a whole lot of swearing. When did having an engineering degree become a requirement for baby accouterments? He'd the thought the crib was hell, but the infant seat had to have been designed by the devil himself. Or Shawn Spencer.

Actually, scratch that—not Spencer. The nimrod wouldn't bother wasting energy, intellectual or otherwise, on anything like an infant seat. Since he had aired his opinion that most modern infant safety products were nothing more than corporate greed masked as an appeal to the guilt and fear prevalent in all parents-to-be. Therefore, in the spirit of "getting back to basics, man," he'd gifted them with an authentic First Nations papoose at Karen's baby shower. Since it had been held at the home he and O'Hara still shared, Carlton had wondered if he could figure out where the ninja kunai blades he'd given them as a housewarming gift were hidden.

O'Hara, knowing him so well after all these years, had muttered, "They're safely locked away, Carlton As much for my sake as yours." And then she'd handed him another drink.

Karen, glowing with pregnancy and brimming with the goodwill and humor that the early third trimester had apparently brought with it, had graciously thanked Spencer, then later at home, had suggested maybe they hang it on the wall of the baby's nursery as a decoration. It was rather pretty after all. Carlton, harboring a healthy respect for the pregnancy hormones and never quite certain what might trigger a rage or crying jag, had agreed, so long as they also got an extra large dream catcher. Not that he bought into such nonsense, mind you, but best to cover all the bases and given that the thing had come from Spencer, who knew what sort of juju it might carry with it?

But now, the baby's nursery was complete—the baby was complete and here and whole and healthy—and they were on their way home. But Karen had insisted they make this one stop before returning home and starting the next phase of their lives together.

He hated to wake her though—sleep was such a precious commodity and while he respected her wish to do this and honestly, kind of wanted to do it himself as well, really, they could do this anytime—

"It'll only take a minute."

He snapped out of his thoughts to find her pushing her hair from her face and blinking drowsily as she met his gaze in the mirror.

"You sure?" he said quietly.

"Yeah."

"Okay."

Exiting the car, he walked around to the back door and helped her out, before reaching back in and unfastening the devil seat's buckles and lifting his son into his arms.

"Hey," he murmured as sleepy dark blue eyes gazed up at him. Karen had told him all babies were born with blue eyes, which relieved him actually. There was a chance they'd turn brown, yet. The kid already had a head full of black, unruly curls—he wanted him to have _something_ of his mother and what better than that sharp, deep brown gaze?

"How you doing, kiddo?"

Swaddled tightly, his son could do little more than blink, but Carlton could _swear_ he saw a glint of reassurance in his gaze.

"Good—I know you're anxious to get home and I'm anxious to get you and your mom there, but we had a little stop to make. Hope you don't mind." He turned to Karen who was smiling as she watched them.

"You okay to carry him?" he asked. At her nod, he carefully transferred the baby to her arms, then ducked back into the car, reaching into the front seat for the flowers she'd had him buy before they left the hospital, silencing him with a look when he'd grumbled about the overinflated prices the hospital flower shop charged.

Never mind that he'd had absolutely no issue dropping an absurd amount of cash on the largest arrangement in the damned shop less than an hour after the baby's birth. It was for Karen.

Truth be known, though, he hadn't really minded dropping the cash again. It was more he felt a little… weird about this.

Less so, after Karen had taken his hand in hers and said it was long past time they did this. And what better time than this?

She was right.

She was always right.

Slowly, they made their way across the rolling green lawn, the sounds and smell of the nearby ocean enveloping them like an old friend welcoming them back. Coming to a stop at the familiar black granite marker, Carlton knelt, pulling a few stray weeds before arranging the flowers across the marker's edge.

"Hey you," he said softly. "I know it's been a while, but I've been... kind of busy. A lot's happened." He laughed, not feeling in the slightest bit odd talking to his former lover while his wife and newborn son stood by.

"But then, I guess you knew that, didn't you?" He rose and stepped back alongside Karen. Putting one arm around her and a supporting arm beneath the baby, he said, "Lucinda, I want you to meet, Matthew. Matthew Donovan Lassiter. My—" he paused and looked at Karen, his breath catching at utterly beautiful she looked, standing beside him, the sun bathing her in a golden glow.

"Our," he corrected, "son."

They stood there, silent, until Matthew began fussing. Carlton, already familiar with the early signs of hunger, offered him his finger, which the baby immediately latched onto.

"I guess we should go," he said softly, knowing this would be the last time they ever visited this spot.

Karen nodded. "We had to say thank you, though, because you know, without her—without what happened to her—"

"I like to think we would have happened anyway." He _had_ to believe that. Because to believe otherwise would be to imagine a life without Karen and that, he simply could _not_ do.

Ever sensitive to his moods, Karen leaned in close, her warmth reassuring. "I can't imagine my life without you either, baby. But the fact is, that without Lucinda's death as a catalyst—" She sighed. "In an odd way, it's as if she's been our fairy godmother. At the very least, I can't deny she opened my eyes to you. To seeing who you really were."

As she had for him with respect to Karen. Carlton sighed. Karen was right. As always.

"Whatever the circumstances, I've got you now, and I'm never letting you go, Karen."

"I don't intend to ever be let go of." Leaning her head back, she met him halfway, her kiss tasting of forever. "Now, let's go home."

"Don't have to tell me twice." He pulled his finger from Matthew's mouth, his heart clenching at his son's outraged squawk. "Or him, I guess."

As they started to walk back toward their car, he glanced back over his shoulder, allowing his gaze to linger on the deeply etched name for one final moment.

"Goodbye, Lucinda. And thanks. For everything."

_**~FIN**_


End file.
